•••••••••I 


•••••••••I 


^ 


LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 

GIFT  OF  MISS  PEARL  CHASE 


IN    CHRIST; 


OR, 


THE    BELIEVER'S    UNION    WITH 
HIS   LORD. 


BY 

A.  J.  GORDON, 
xx 

PASTOR  OF  THE  CLARENDON   STREET  CHURCH,   BOSTOH. 


^  "  Union  with  Christ  is  the  distinctive  blessing  of  the  gospel  dispensa- 
tion in  which  every  other  is  comprised, — justification,  saiictification, 
adoption,  and  the  future  glorifying  of  our  bodies ;  all  these  are  but  differ- 
ent aspects  of  the  one  great  truth,  that  the  Christian  is  one  with  Christ.' 

EDWARD  ARTHUR  LITTON, 


SIXTH    EDITION. 


Boston: 

HOWARD    GANNETT, 
TREMONT  TEMPLK, 

1883. 


Copyright  by 
HOWARD    GANNETT, 

1880. 


PREFACE. 


jjF  this  little  book  should  be  to  any  in 
reading  it,  what  it  has  been  to  the 
author  in  writing  it,  an  aid  to  medita- 
tion upon  one  of  the  deepest  and  tenderest 
themes  of  the  gospel,  it  will  have  served  the 
end  of  its  publication. 

It  lays  no  claim  to  originality  in  doctrine, 
having  sought  in  every  line  to  be  in  humble 
subjection  to  the  word  of  God,  and  constantly 
to  reflect  whatever  lesser  light  might  fall 
upon  it  from  the  thought  and  experience  of 
good  men,  since  as  has  been  fitly  said,  "  only 
'  with  all  saints '  can  we  comprehend  what  is 
the  depth  and  length  of  that  which  is  pre- 
sented to  us  in  Jesus  Christ." 

If  subjects  have  been  touched  upon  which 
are  still  in  the  list  of  disputed  doctrine,  they 
have  been  brought  forward,  it  is  believed,  in 
the  love  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  not 


iv  PREFACE. 

in  the  interest  of  any  sect  or  party  ;  while  to 
controversy,  "  whose  rough  voice  and  unmeek 
aspect "  have  perhaps  oftener  repelled  from 
the  truth  than  won  to  it,  no  place  has  been 
given.  With  the  humble  prayer  that  its  pe- 
rusal may  help  some  to  rest  in  Christ  with  a 
deeper  assurance,  to  abide  in  Him  in  greater 
spiritual  fruitfulness,  and  to  wait  for  his  ap- 
pearing with  a  more  devout  watchfulness,  this 
book  is  now  committed  to  the  blessing  of  God 
and  the  use  of  his  Spirit. 

BOSTON,  April  19,  1872. 


CONTENTS. 

rum 

L  IN  CHRIST.  —  INTRODUCTORY  ....  7 

II.  CRUCIFIXION  IN  CHRIST      ....  27 

III.  RESURRECTION  IN  CHRIST       ....  47 

IV.  BAPTISM  INTO  CHRIST          ....  67 
V.  LIFE  IN  CHRIST 89 

VI.  STANDING  IN  CHRIST iij 

VII.  PRAYER  IN  CHRIST  ......  133 

VIII.  COMMUNION  IN  CHRIST       ....  151 

IX.  SANCTIFICATION  IN  CHRIST     ....  165 

X.  GLORIFICATION  IN  CHRIST  .       .       .       .  183 

NOTES                                    ....  201 


I.     INTRODUCTORY. 


Created  in  Cf)ri£t  3|e£u£  unto  good 

Eph.  ii.  10. 


are  pc  n 

I  Cbr.  i.  30. 


3tfcorDm$  a^  i)c  Ijatl)  c  hoeen  u.s  in 
l)im  before  UK  founoation  of  ti)c  luorlo. 

i.  4. 


toe  are  in  ^im  tljat  i^  true,  eben 
in  Jtsf  £on  3fejefu^  Cgri^t. 

i  y<?A»  v.  20. 

* 


I. 

IN    CHRIST. 

f;O  words  of  Scripture,  if  we  except 
those,  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh," 

*^*  hold  within  themselves  a  deeper  mys- 
tery than  this  simple  formula  of  the  Christian 
life,  "  in  Christ" 

Indeed,  God's  taking  upon  Himself  human- 
ity, and  yet  remaining  God,  is  hardly  more 
inexplicable  to  human  thought  than  man's 
becoming  a  "  partaker  of  the  divine  nature," 
and  yet  remaining  man.  Both  are  of  those 
secret  things  that  belong  wholly  unto  God. 
Yet,  great  as  is  the  mystery  of  these  words, 
they  are  the  key  to  the  whole  system  of  doc- 
trinal mysteries.  Like  the  famous  Rosetta 
stone,  itself  a  partial  hieroglyph,  and  thereby 
furnishing  the  long-sought  clew  to  the  Egyp- 
tian hieroglyphics,  these  words,  by  their  very 
mystery,  unlock  all  mysteries  of  the  divine 
life,  letting  us  into  secrets  that  were  "  hidden 


TO  IN  CHRIST. 

from  ages  and  from  generations."  True,  we 
may  not  find  in  them  an  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, "  How  can  these  things  be  ? "  but  we 
shall  see  clearly  that  they  can  be.  For 
through  this  "  Emmanuel  knot  of  union,"  as 
one  has  quaintly  called  it,  those  great  facts  of 
the  Christian  life,  regeneration,  justification, 
sanctification,  and  redemption,  are  drawn 
up  from  the  realm  of  the  human  and  the 
impossible,  and  made  fast  to  Him  with  whom 
"  all  things  are  possible."  So  that  the  ques- 
tion now  becomes  reversed,  and  we  must  ask, 
"  How  can  it  be  otherwise  ?  "  If  one  is  in 
Christ,  he  must  have  regeneration  ;  for  how 
can  the  Head  be  alive,  and  the  members  dead  ? 
If  one  is  in  Christ,  he  must  be  justified  ;  for 
how  can  God  approve  the  Head,  and  condemn 
the  members  ?  If  one  is  in  Christ,  he  must 
have  sanctification  ;  for  how  can  the  spot- 
lessly Holy  remain  in  vital  connection  with 
one  that  is  unholy  ?  If  one  is  in  Christ,  he 
must  have  redemption  ;  for  how  can  the  Son 
of  God  be  in  glory,  while  that  which  He  has 
made  a  part  of  his  body  lies  abandoned  in 
the  grave  of  eternal  death  ? 

And  thus,  through  these  two  words,  we  get 
a  profound  insight  into  the  divine  method  .of 


IN  CHRIST.  II 

salvation.  God  does  not  work  upon  the  soul 
by  itself;  bringing  to  bear  upon  it,  while  yet 
m  its  alienation  and  isolation  from  Him,  such 
discipline  as  shall  gradually  render  it  fit  to  be 
reunited  to  Him.  He  begins  rather  by  re- 
uniting it  to  Himself,  that  through  this  union 
He  may  communicate  to  it  that  divine  life 
and  energy,  without  which  all  discipline  were 
utterly  futile.  The  method  of  grace  is  pre- 
cisely the  reverse  of  the  method  of  legalism. 
The  latter  is  holiness  in  order  to  union  with 
God  ;  the  former,  union  with  God  in  order  to 
holiness.  Hence  the  Incarnation,  as  the 
starting-point  and  prime  condition  of  recon- 
ciliation to  God ;  since  there  can  be,  to  use 
Hooker's  admirable  statement,  "  no  union  of 
God  with  man,  without  that  mean  between 
both  which  is  both."  And  hence  the  neces- 
sity of  incorporation  upon  Christ,  that  what 
became  possible  through  the  Incarnation,  may 
become  actual  and  experimental  in  the  indi- 
vidual soul  through  faith. 

Nothing  is  more  striking  than  the  breadth 
of  application  which  this  principle  of  union 
with  Christ  has  in  the  gospel.  Christianity 
obliterates  no  natural  relationships,  destroys 
no  human  obligations,  makes  void  no  moral 


12  IN  CHRIST. 

or  spiritual  laws.  But  it  lifts  all  these  up  into 
a  new  sphere,  and  puts  upon  them  this  seal 
and  signature  of  the  gospel,  in  Christ.  So 
that  while  all  things  continue  as  they  were 
from  the  beginning,  all,  by  their  readjustment 
to  this  divine  character  and  person,  become 
virtually  new.  Life  is  still  of  God,  but  it  has 
this  new  dependency  "  in  Christ."  "  Of  Him 
are  ye  in  Christ  Jesus?  The  obligation  to 
labor  remains  unchanged,  but  a  new  motive 
and  a  new  sanctity  are  given  to  it  by  its  rela- 
tion to  Christ.  "  Forasmuch  as  ye  know 
that  your  labor  is  not  in  vain  in  the  Lord? 
The  marriage  relation  is  stamped  with  this 
new  signet,  "  Only  in  the  Lord."  Filial  obe- 
dience is  exalted  into  direct  connection  with 
the  Son  of  God.  "  Children  obey  your  par- 
ents in  the  Lord"  Daily  life  becomes  "a 
good  conversation  in  Christ."  Joy  and  sor- 
row, triumph  and  suffering,  are  all  in  Christ. 
Even  truth,  as  though  needing  a  fresh  baptism, 
is  viewed  henceforth  "as  it  is  in  Jesus? 
Death  remains,  but  it  is  robbed  of  its  sting  and 
crowned  with  a  beatitude,  because  in  Christ. 
"  Blessed  are  the  dead  who  die  in  the  Lord? 
Thus  Christ,  in  taking  man  up  into  Him- 
self, takes  all  that  belongs  to  him.  Instead 


IN  CHRIST.  13 

of  rending  him  away  from  his  natural  con- 
nections, He  embraces  all  these  with  him 
in  Himself,  that  He  may  sanctify  them  all. 
And  not  only  is  this  true,  but  the  opposite 
and  far  more  wondrous  fact,  namely,  that 
Christ,  in  raising  man  into  union  with  Him- 
self, raises  him  into  all  that  belongs  to  Him, 
into  his  divine  life,  and  into  partnership  with 
his  divine  work.  So  that  he  dies  in  his 
death  ;  rises  in  his  resurrection  ;  ascends  in 
his  ascension  ;  is  seated  with  Him  in  his 
session  at  the  Father's  right  hand  ;  and  lives 
in  his  eternal  life. 

So  marked  is  this  latter  fact,  that  it  has  led 
some  to  speak  of  the  events  of  the  Christian 
life  as  affording  "  a  striking  parallel  to  those 
of  Christ's."  But  there  is  no  parallel.  Par- 
allels never  meet,  while  the  very  glory  and 
mystery  of  the  believer's  life  is  that  it  is  one 
with  the  Saviour's  and  inseparable  from  it 
It  is  not  a  life  running  alongside  his,  and 
taking  shape  and  direction  from  it.  It  is  his 
life  reenacted  in  his  followers  ;  the  reproduc- 
tion in  them  of  those  events  which  are  im- 
mortal in  energy  and  limitless  in  application. 

Our  Lord's  whole  earthly  career  is  one 
continuous  and  living  sacrament,  of  which  his 


14  AV  CHRIST. 

disciples  partake  through  faith.  And  if  their 
eyes  are  not  holden,  they  will  discern,  in  each 
great  event  of  that  life,  not  only  the  earnest 
and  symbol  of  what  He  works  in  them,  but 
they  will  see  that  only  by  feeding  upon  this 
Bread,  can  they  have  any  life  dwelling  in 
them.  This  —  the  blessed  life  and  work  of 
our  Lord  —  is  his  "  body  given  for  us  ;  "  a 
"body  of  divinity"  containing  all  doctrine, 
and  nourishing  with  all  life ;  and  of  every 
element  of  it  —  suffering,  death,  resurrection, 
and  glory  —  we  hear  Him  saying,  "  Take,  eat." 

If  we  reflect  upon  the  nature  of  that  union 
into  which  these  words  which  we  are  consid- 
ering link  us,  we  see  that  every  possible  con- 
dition and  requirement  of  salvation  are  met 
and  answered  by  it. 

It  is  a  union  extending  back  of  time.  We 
find  it  clearly  recognized  in  God's  eternal 
predestination.  "  According  as  He  hath  cho- 
sen us  in  Him  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world."  "  In  Him"  It  would  seem  as  though 
this  were  the  focal  point  where  alone  the 
beams  of  the  Father's  electing  love  met  to 
bless  and  comfort,  while  all  beyond  it  was 
darkness  and  death.  So  vital  is  the  atone- 
ment, that  the  shadow  of  the  cross  is  thrown 


IN  CHRIST.  15 

back  into  a  past  eternity,  to  cover  and  justify 
God's  choice  of  the  sinner ; l  and  his  very 
purpose  of  grace  is  wrapped  up  in  Jesus 
Christ.2 

If  doubt  suggests  the  query,  "  How  could 
the  believer  be  in  Christ  when  he  did  not  yet 
exist  ? "  the  question  can  only  be  answered 
by  another  and  deeper,  "  How  could  God  elect 
and  love  a  soul  which  He  had  not  yet  cre- 
ated ? "  Yet  that  He  did,  is  most  explicitly 
declared  in  Scripture.  And  what  David  as- 
serts of  his  natural  body,  not  less  emphatically 
does  the  Son  of  David  assert  of  his  mystical 
body.  "  Thine  eyes  did  see  my  substance 
yet  being  imperfect,  and  in  thy  book  all  my 
members  were  written,  which  in  continuance 
were  fashioned,  when  as  yet  tJiere  was  none  of 
them"  Is  there  aught  more  painful  than  the 
searchings  of  the  soul  in  the  book  of  God's 
foreknowledge  ?  its  irrepressible  longings  to 
know  if  it  be  written  there  ?  If  it  goes  alone 
in  its  solemn  quest  it  will  find  no  answer. 
But  joining  itself  to  Him  who  "  was  in  the 
beginning  with  God,"  it  hears  Him  saying, 
"  Thou  lovest  me  before  the  foundation  of 
the  world,"  and  reverently  appropriating  the 

1  Rev.  xiil  8..  a  2  Tim.  i.  9. 


1 6  IN  CHRIST. 

words  in  the  secret  right  of  faith,  it  joyfully 
responds,  "  Herein  is  our  love  made  perfect  . 
because  as  He  is  so  arc  we  in  this  world" 
The  Father's  eternal  love  for  the  Son,  is  the 
pledge  and  certificate  of  his  eternal  love  and 
election  of  those  who  join  themselves  to  that 
Son. 

But  if  this  union  runs  back  of  time,  it  is 
not  less  really  in  time  a  practical  and  present 
reality ;  practical  and  present,  because  eternal. 
For  what  is  faith,  but  the  suffrage  of  the  soul 
which  ratines  and  appropriates  that  election 
of  God  which  was  made  before  creation  ? 
Very  literally  is  it 

"  An  affirmation  and  an  act 
That  bids  eternal  truth  be  present  fact." 

That  which  is  given  only  in  the  divine  intent 
and  foreordination,  is  not  ours  till  we  con- 
sciously and  believingly  accept  it.  "  Faith 
cometh  by  hearing,"  and  possession  by  faith. 
God's  choice  of  us  lays  hold  of  us  only  through 
our  choice  of  Him.  And  it  is  when  the  soul, 
waking  up  to  the  fact  of  its  sad  alienation 
from  its  Maker,  and  uttering  its  earnest  "  I 
will  arise  and  go  unto  my  Father,"  joins  itself 
to  that  Father  by  a  trusting  faith,  that  the 
Father,  who  in  the  Christ  of  eternity  saw 


fN  CHRIST.  I/ 

him  "  ivheis.  he  was  yet  a  great  way  off"  and 
in  the  Christ  of  time  crucified  and  slain  came 
out  to  meet  him,  becomes  completely  recon- 
ciled to  him. 

The  first  link  of  religion  (religo,  to  bind 
back)  is  the  Incarnation,  God  in  Christ.  The 
last  is  Faith,  the  soul  in  Christ.  And  when 
the  last  has  been  joined  to  the  first,  the  chain 
is  perfect.  "  I  in  them,  and  thou  Father  in 
me,  that  they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one." 

Again,  the  union  of  the  believer  with  his 
Lord  is  a  reciprocal  union.  "  Ye  in  me,  and  I 
in  you."  Through  it  Christ  both  gives  and 
takes, — gives  the  Father's  life  and  blessed- 
ness, and  takes  the  believer's  death  and 
wretchedness.  "All  that  Christ  has,"  says 
Luther,  "  now  becomes  the  property  of  the 
believing  soul ;  all  that  the  soul  has,  becomes 
the  property  of  Christ.  Christ  possesses 
every  blessing  and  eternal  salvation ;  they 
are  henceforth  the  property  of  the  soul.  The 
soul  possesses  every  vice  and  sin ;  they  be- 
come henceforth  the  property  of  Christ." 

In  this  is  most  wonderfully  displayed  the 
wisdom  of  the  plan  of  redemption.  Who  that 
has  pondered  the  nature  of  sin,  and  thought 
how  radical,  how  ingrained,  how  thoroughly 


1 8  IN  CHRIST. 

a  part  of  one's  self  it  is,  has  not  almost 
doubted  whether  it  could  ever  be  taken  away 
its  evil  principle  exterminated,  and  the  soul 
completely  disinfected  of  its  taint  ?  But  when 
we  remember  that  Christ  by  his  Cross  deals 
not  only  with  sin,  but  with  the  nature  in  which 
all  its  roots  are  imbedded,  the  way  is  plain  ; 
and  we  see  with  gratitude  how  the  "  body  of 
sin,"  that  body  which  holds  the  germinant  and 
fertile  principle  of  evil,  may  be  destroyed, 
and  yet  the  sinner  saved. 

And  who,  on  the  other  hand,  that  has  con- 
templated the  nature  of  that  "  holiness  with- 
out which  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord,"  and 
realized  that  it  is  no  mere  external  morality, 
no  garment  of  righteousness  to  be  assumed 
and  worn  as  the  covering  of  a  yet  unsancti- 
fied  nature  ;  but  a  divine  life  penetrating,  pos- 
sessing, and  informing  the  soul,  has  not  asked 
despairingly,  "  How  then  can  I,  a  sinner,  hope 
to  be  holy  ? "  But  the  gospel  answer  is  all 
in  those  three  words,  "  I  in  you."  He  who 
is  the  All-righteous,  "  is  made  unto  us  right- 
eousness." So  that  to  the  soul  that  thirsts 
after  righteousness,  it  need  no  longer  be  said, 
"The  well  is  deep,  and  thou  hast  nothing 
with  which  to  draw."  He  is  within  it,  "a 


IN  CHRIST.  19 

well  of  water  springing  up  into  everlasting 
Ufe." 

Thus  in  Christ  the  twofold  want  of  the 
soul  is  met.  It  is  emptied  of  self,  and  it  is 
filled  with  his  fullness  "  who  filleth  all  in  all." 

Can  anything  be  so  blessed  for  the  believer 
to  realize,  as  this  gracious  interchange  of  life, 
and  character,  and  works,  between  himself 
and  his  Lord  ?  Oh  wondrous  mystery !  Christ 
became  the  "  Son  of  man,"  that  we  might  be- 
come the  "  sons  of  God."  He  took  upon 
Himself  our  human  nature,  that  we  might  be 
made  "  partakers  of  the  divine  nature."  He 
was  made  sin  for  us,  that  we  might  be  made 
the  "  righteousness  of  God  in  Him." 

And  not  less  obviously  do  the  terms  of  this 
union  suggest  its  indissolublcness.  If  joined 
to  the  Lord  by  a  mere  external  bond  only,  the 
believer  might  well  live  in  fear  of  being  rent 
from  Him  by  the  strain  of  fierce  temptation. 
But  so  transcendently  intimate  is  this  relation, 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  even  uses  Christ  and  the 
Church  as  interchangeable  terms  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. Now"  it  is  the  human  body  that  shad- 
ows forth  the  divine  mystery.  "As  the  body 
is  one  and  hath  many  members,  and  all  the 
members  of  that  one  body,  being  many,  are 


2O  IN  CHRIST. 

one  body  ;  so  also  is  Christ." *  "  Now  ye  are 
the  body  of  Christ  and  members  in  particu- 
lar." And  will  Christ  permit  this  body  to  be 
dismembered  ?  He  can  suffer  in  his  mem- 
bers ; 2  but  Faith  would  feel  herself  robbed  of 
all  her  heritage  of  assurance,  were  it  any- 
where written,  He  can  be  cut  off  or  perish  in 
his  members.  Wounds  and  mutilations  there 
will  be  ;  for,  in  Rutherford's  strong  phrase, 
"  The  dragon  will  strike  at  Christ  so  long  as 
there  is  one  bit  or  portion  of  his  mystical 
body  out  of  heaven."  But  love  cannot  cher- 
ish the  fear  that  He  will  heal  the  hurts  of  his 
people  slightly,  much  less  sunder  them  from 
Him  by  an  eternal  excision.  For  "  No  man 
ever  yet  hated  his  own  body,  but  nourisJteth 
and  cherisheth  it,  even  as  the  Lord  the 
Church  ;  for  we  are  members  of  his  body,  of 
his  flesh,  and  of  his  bones."  3 

How  clearly  now  this  relation  which  we 
bear  to  the  Lord  Jesus  fixes  two  things,  the 
Christian  experience  and  the  Christian  walk, 
or  the  inner  and  outer  life  of  the  believer. 

Christian  experience  is  the  making  real  in 
ourselves,  of  what  is  already  true  for  us  in 
Christ4 

1  Note  A.  8  Eph.  v.  29,  30. 

2  Acts  xxii.  7.  *  Note  B 


IN  CHRIST.  21 

'-*  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  brandies,"  says 
Christ.  But  the  vine  furnishes  the  branches 
not  only  with  the  principle  of  life,  but  with 
the  type  of  life.  No  pressure  or  moulding 
from  without  is  needed  to  shape  them  to  the 
pattern  of  the  parent  stock.  Every  minutest 
peculiarity  of  form,  and  color,  and  taste,  and 
fragrance,  is  determined  by  the  root,  and 
evolved  from  it.  A  true  believer,  therefore, 
will  ask  no  better  thing  of  the  Lord,  than 
"that  the  life  also  of  Jesus  may  be  made 
manifest  in  his  body."  For  such  a  manifes- 
tation will,  by  a  necessary  law,  be  the  unfold- 
ing within  him  of  every  needed  element  of 
joy  and  sorrow,  of  suffering  and  triumph. 

It  is  not  in  any  conventional  standard  of 
frames  and  feelings,  that  the  disciple  is  to  find 
the  measure  of  attainment  required  of  him. 
It  is  not  by  any  painful  reproducing  of 
another's  spiritual  history  that  he  is  to  ac- 
quire the  true  comfort  of  spirit  which  he  longs 
for.  Outward  imitation,  though  it  be  of  the 
Perfect  Example  himself,  has  little  place  in 
the  order  of  spiritual  growth  \  little  place 
because  little  possibility.  "  Without  me,"  i.  *., 
apart  from  me,  in  separation  from  me,  "  ye  can 
do  nothing."  To  abide  in  Christ  is  the  only 


22         .  IN  CHRIST. 

secret  of  Christlikeness  ;  for  only  thus  is  at- 
tained the  4ikeness  of  unity,  which  is  perfect 
and  enduring,  instead  of  the  likeness  of  con- 
formity, which  is  only  partial  and  transient. 

How  we  misplace  our  experiences  when 
we  attempt,  as  mere  copyists,  to  reproduce  our 
Master's  life  within  us.  We  put  joy  where 
the  divine  order  would  dictate  sorrow,  and 
nurse  our  sorrow,  when  the  Lord  would  have 
us  rejoice  in  Him.  We  reach  after  the  un- 
seasonable fruits  of  victory,  when  it  is  more 
needful  as  yet  that  we  should  endure  the  dis- 
cipline of  defeat,  that  so  divine  strength  may 
be  made  perfect  in  our  weakness.  Our  leaf 
withers  in  sere  and  yellow  melancholy,  when 
He  would  have  it  green  and  flourishing. 
What  we  would,  that  we  continually  do  not, 
because  we  lack  a  true  and  steadfast  hold  on 
strength.  Blessed  is  he,  who,  instead  of  seek- 
ing to  attain  the  likeness  of  Christ  as  some- 
thing only  without  him,  realizes  that  he  has 
been  planted  in  that  likeness.  "  He  shall  be 
like  a  tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of  water, 
that  bringcth  forth  his  fruit  in  his  season  ;  his 
leaf  also  shall  not  wither,  and  whatsoever  he 
doeth  shall  prosper? 

Never  shall  we  attain  a  truly  joyful  Chris- 


IN  CHRIST.  23 

tian  experience,  therefore,  till  we  learn  that 
holy  living  is  neither  the  realization  of  some 
ideal  self,  nor  the  imitation  of  some  real  saint. 
"  For  me  to  live  is  Christ"  Christian  prog- 
ress is  a  growing  towards  Christ,  by  growing 
from  Him.  And  the  Scripture  exhortations 
to  high  attainment  in  the  divine  life  seem  to 
be  based  on  this  order.  The  believer  is  to 
have  "  the  mind  of  Christ "  within  him,  the 
"  spirit  of  Christ "  animating  him.  His  devel- 
opment is  a  "growing  up  into  Him  in  all 
things  who  is  the  Head,  even  Christ."  The 
limit  and  boundary  of  his  attainment  is  "  the 
perfect  man,"  "  the  measure  of  the  stature  of 
the  fullness  of  Christ."  Well  may  the  disciple 
set  the  Lord  always  before  him  as  the  ideal 
of  perfect  attainment,  if  only  he  can  have  Him 
thus  always  within  him,  as  the  source  and 
principle  of  daily  growth. 

We  have  said  that  our  relation  to  Christ 
determines  alfo  our  Christian  walk.  This  is 
obvious. 

A  true  Christian  walk  is  a  reproducing  in 
our  lives  of  the  righteousness  which  is  already 
ours  in  Christ. 

Joined  to  the  Lord  by  faith,  we  become 
"partakers  of  his  holiness."  But  not  that 


24  IN  CHRIST. 

thereby  we  may  be  exempted  from  the  neces- 
sity of  personal  holiness.  It  is  rather  that 
such  personal  holiness  may  have  a  new  and 
higher  obligation,  since  it  has  a  new  possibil- 
ity. The  double  purpose  of  our  union  to 
Christ  must  never  for  a  moment  be  forgot- 
ten, nor  its  heavenward  and  earthward  as- 
pects for  an  instant  separated  in  our  appre- 
hension. It  is  in  order  that  we  may  be  as 
He  is  in  the  reckoning  of  God,  and  equally 
that  we  may  be  as  He  is  before  the  eyes  of 
men.  "  No  condemnation  to  them  that  are  in 
Christ  Jesus,"  is  one  phase  of  this  blessed 
truth.  But,  O  believer,  forget  not  the  other, 
lest  you  bring  upon  yourself  the  curse  of  a 
dry  and  barren  Antinomianism  :  "  created  in 
Christ  Jesus  unto  good  works,  which  God 
hath  before  ordained  that  we  should  \va^  in 
them." l  The  branches  are  the  product  and 
the  measure  of  the  roots,  the  one  spread- 
ing as  widely  as  the  other  strikes  deeply. 
And  how  solemn  the  obligation  resting  upon 
those  who  are  truly  rooted  in  Christ,  to  reach 
forth  their  branches  and  cover  that  area  of 
good  works  which  the)'  have  underlaid,  and, 
so  to  speak,  preempted  by  their  faith.  Our 
1  Eph.  ii.  10 


IN  CHRIST.  25 

privileges  in  Jesus  are  glorious  beyond  com- 
parison. But  they  are  awful  when  we  re- 
member that  they  are  the  pledge  and  meas- 
ure of  our  obligations.  Never  before  on  earth 
or  perhaps  in  heaven  was  one  exalted  to  utter 
so  great  a  word  as  this,  /  in  Christ.  Yet  if 
we  know  its  meaning,  we  shall  pause  lest  we 
speak  it  lightly  or  unadvisedly.  "  For  he 
that  saith  he  abideth  in  Him,  ought  himself 
also  so  to  walk,  even  as  He  walked."  * 

Such  are  some  of  the  germs  of  doctrine  and 
life  which  are  hidden  for  us  in  these  words, 
and  which  it  will  be  our  purpose  to  unfold  in 
the  succeeding  chapters. 

If  now  we  apprehend  either  the  privileges 
or  the  duties  into  which  this  union  brings  us, 
we  shall  not  be  willing  to  regard  it  as  a  mere 
nominal  thing,  or  to  hold  it  as  a  cold  doctrinal 
abstraction. 

Nothing  could  be  more  real  and  more  vital 
than  this  relationship. 

We  may  speak  of  being  regarded  as  in 
Him,  and  so  having  reckoned  to  us  the  ben- 
efits of  his  atonement.  We  may  speak  of 
being  clothed  with  his  righteousness,  and  so 
having  his  worthiness  imputed  to  us.  But 

1  I  John  iL  & 


26  IN  CHRIST. 

true  as  these  expressions  are,  they  do  not 
reach  the  inwardness  of  meaning  contained  in 
the  words,  in  CJirist,  or  furnish  an  adequate 
statement  of  that  deep  interior  fellowship  into 
which  God  has  called  us  in  his  Son.1 

Truly  that  must  be  a  most  intimate  bond 
which,  beginning  in  Christ  and  encircling  the 
disciple  with  its  triple  cords  of  faith,  hope,  and 
charity,  ends  again  in  Christ.  "  From  whom. " 
and  "  into  whom,"  are  the  words  that  mark  at 
once  its  origin  and  end,  even  that  one  Head 
who  is  the  "  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  Beginning 
and  the  End,  the  First  and  the  Last." 

"  Here  at  length  I  beheld,"  says  one,  "  the 
twofold  mystery  of  love,  that  the  Bride  is  both 
of  Christ  and  in  Christ.  For  as  God  took 
Eve  from  out  the  side  of  Adam,  that  she 
might  be  joined  to  him  again  in  marriage, 
even  so  He  frameth  his  Church  out  of  the  very 
flesh,  the  very  wounded  and  bleeding  side  of 
the  Son  of  man,  that  so  in  the  sweet  espou- 
sals of  faith,  he  might  'present  her  as  a 
chaste  virgin  to  Christ.' z  '  And  they  two 
shall  be  one  flesh.  This  is  a  great  mystery, 
but  I  speak  concerning  Christ  and  the 
Church.'"3 

1  I  Cor.  1.8.  2  2  Cor.  xi.  2.  •  Eph.  v.  32. 


II.     CRUCIFIXION    IN   CHRIST. 


91  am  crucifieb  toirt)  CJri^t:  netier* 
Ji  Ii\jc;  pet  not  3(,  but  Cfjri^t 
in  me.  Gai.  \\.  20. 


Itnotuing  tfji^,  tfjat  our  olb  man 
crucifico  tuitlj  ^im,  t^at  tlje  botip  of 
mig()t  be  oc^tropcb,  tjjat  fjcnccfort^  toe 
not  £crtoc  ^in,  Rom.  vi.  6. 


3Cnb  tftcp   tjat  are    €ljri^t'^    fjatoe 
crucificb  tfte  fle^l)  tDit!)  tfte  affection^  anb 

Ca/.  v.  24. 


II. 

CRUCIFIXION  IN  CHRIST. 

|T  is  one  of  the  great  principles 
of  Christianity,"  says  Pascal,  "  that 
everything  which  happened  to  Jesus 
Christ  should  come  to  pass  in  the  soul  and 
in  the  body  of  each  Christian." 

If  by  faith  I  am  one  with  my  Redeemer 
then,  that  term,  "  Christ  crucified,"  involves 
another,  "  I,  crucified  with  Christ."  Hence 
we  by  no  means  reach  the  true  measure  of 
our  inheritance  in  the  Cross,  when  we  regard 
the  death  of  Christ  as  a  formal  transaction, 
by  which  One,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago, 
paid  a  debt  that  belonged  to  us,  and  thus 
secured  our  release  from  its  obligation,  we 
having  no  other  connection  with  the  event 
than  that  of  recipients  of  its  blessings.  Paul 
saw  a  richer  heritage  for  the  saints  than  this. 
For  with  that  key,  in  Christ,  which  opens  for 
the  believer  all  the  wards  of  Christian  doc- 


3O  IN  CHRIST. 

trine  and  life,  he  lets  us  into  "  ihe  fellowship 
of  his  sufferings? 

The  great  thought  which  filled  his  mind 
was  his  oneness  with  his  Lord  —  a  oneness 
not  only  of  the  present  and  the  future,  but 
equally  of  the  past.  And  so  he  utters  those 
grand  but  awful  words,  "  /  have  been  crucified 
with  Christ ;  "  *  in  which  he  carries  himself 
back  to  the  cross,  and  conceives  of  himself 
as  so  identified  with  the  Redeemer,  that  he 
was  with  Him  in  his  passion  and  obedience 
unto  death,  sharing,  by  a  mysterious  fellow- 
ship, not  only  the  virtue  but  the  endurance 
of  the  divine  penalty. 

And  what  was  true  for  him  is  true  for  all 
who  have  come  into  that  condition  expressed 
by  the  words,  "  in  Christ  Jesus? 

That  the  crucifixion  took  place  centuries 
ago,  does  not  separate  us  from  it  at  all. 
While  as  a  historical  event  we  assign  it  to  a 
specific  time  and  place,  as  a  moral  event  it 
belongs  to  all  time,  and  is  just  as  near  to  us 
as  it  was  to  John  or  the  Marys.  "  God  mani- 
fested in  the  flesh,"  says  Coleridge,  "is  eter- 
nity in  the  form  of  time."  Christ  crucified  is 
an  eternal  fact  realized  at  a  certain  date,  but 
i  Note  C. 


IN  CHRIST.  31 

touching  all  time  with  equal  closeness.  He 
is  "the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world."  In  the  eye  of  the  /  am,  to  whom  all 
time  is  an  ever  present  now,  this  central  fact 
of  the  ages,  the  crucifixion,  is  an  ever  present 
reality,  and  all  souls  that  stand  in  moral  re- 
lationship to  it,  stand  so  and  have  stood  so 
forever.  Hence  it  can  matter  little  to  have 
"  known  Christ  after  the  flesh."  Spiritual 
union  is  entirely  independent  of  all  condi- 
tions of  time  and  space.  And  in  depth  of 
intimacy  there  can  be  no  difference  between 
the  believer  of  to-day  and  those  who  knew 
our  Lord  on  earth,  since  "  by  one  Spirit  we 
are  all  baptized  into  one  body" 1  and  therefore 
into  one  death,  since  "  as  many  of  us  as  were 
baptized  into  Christ  were  baptized  into  his 
death."  2 

How  deeply,  through  the  kindredship  of  the 
flesh,  one  could  share  Christ's  crucifixion,  we 
know.  That  the  mother,  watching  beneath 
the  cross  the  agonies  of  her  suffering  Son, 
endured  in  her  own  heart  all  the  sharpness  of 
his  death  ;  that  as  the  soldiers  thrust  the  spear 
into  his  side,  she  knew  in  her  own  experience 
the  bitter  meaning  of  the  aged  Simeon'3 
1  I  Cor.  xii.  13.  2  Rom.  vi.  3. 


32  IN  CHRIST. 

prophecy,  "  Yea,  a  sword  shall  pierce  through 
thy  oivn  soul  also"  we  can  easily  believe 
But  since  we  have  learned  how  nearer  akin 
Christ  now  is  to  all  his  brethren  by  the  Spirit, 
shall  there  seem  to  be  anything  less  real  in 
the  words  cf  one  who,  by  faith,  clasped  to  his 
heart  the  same  cross  of  redemption,  saying, 
"  I  am  crucified  with  Christ  "  ? 

The  mystery  of  that  fellowship  by  which 
we  become  sharers  in  Christ's  death,  we  may 
not  presume  to  fathom.  And  yet  it  seems 
clear  how  it  must  grow  out  of  the  terms  of 
the  incarnation.  Christ,  in  becoming  man, 
took  our  humanity  into  partnership  in  his 
sacrificial  work.  Hence,  his  death  is  not 
something  merely  made  over  to  mankind  as  a 
legacy  of  love  ;  it  is  something  accruing  to 
it  in  this  partnership  of  being.1  But  as 
surely  as  He  must  be  one  with  us  by  incar- 
nation in  order  to  give  us  part  in  his  dying, 
so  surely  must  we  be  one  with  Him  by  faith, 
that  we  may  take  part-  in  his  dying. 

There  is  an  inner  and  an  outer  circle  of 
redemption,  if  we  may  say  so,  both  having  a 
common  centre  in  the  cross.  The  larger  de- 
scribes the  limits  of  a  possible  and  provisional 
salvation  ;  the  smaller  those  of  an  actual  and 
1  Note  D. 


IN  CHRIST.  33 

realized  salvation.  The  whole  world  is  com- 
prehended in  the  one  ;  only  those  who  be- 
lieve are  included  in  the  "other:  "God  who 
is  the  Saviour  of  all  men,  especially  of  those 
who  believe"  1  The  relation  which  those  in 
the  outer  circle  hold  to  Christ  is  that  of  mem- 
bers of  the  human  race  to  its  second  Head. 
The  relation  which  those  in  the  inner  circle 
hold  to  Him  is  that  of  members  of  the  body 
of  Christ  to  the  Head  of  the  Church.  The 
first  relation  renders  Christ's  redemption 
provisionally  the  redemption  of  every  indi- 
vidual of  the  race  ;  the  second  renders  it  ac- 
tually such  to  every  true  believer.  So  that 
when  the  Apostle  says,  "  If  one  died  for  all, 
then  all  died"  2  we  understand  his  meaning  to 
be  that  all  mankind  died  potentially  in  their 
representative.  Such  is  the  blessed  provis- 
ion and  stipulation,  if  we  may  say  so,  of  the 
atonement.  But  while  He  who  could  set  no 
limits  to  his  love,  "  tasted  death  for  every  man," 
alas  !  how  many  refuse  to  taste  his  death,  and 
through  faith  owning  themselves  one  with 
Him,  to  taste  their  own  death  to  sin  in  his  ! 

As  clearly  now  as  we  are  forbidden  by  the 
Scriptures  to  extend  the  possibility  of  a  vital 

1  I  Tim.  iv.  i<x  a  2  Cor.  v.  14.* 

3 


34  IN  CHRIST. 

and  saving  union  to  Christ  beyond  the  bound- 
aries of  this  inner  circle  of  redemption,  so 
clearly  should  our  faith  in  the  reality  of  the 
Christian's  oneness  with  his  Lord  forbid  us 
to  admit  such  words  as  "nominal"  and  "judi- 
cial "  within  the  limits  of  this  inner  circle. 
Here  we  are  beyond  all  legal  fictions.  "  We 
are  in  Him  that  is  true?  And  as  fully  as  we 
believe  that  his  death  was  real,  and  no  vain 
proffer,  so  must  we  believe  that  our  death  in 
Him  was  real,  since'  we  are  members  of  his 
body.  The  cross  deals  not  with  our  sins  apart 
from  ourselves.  It  permits  us  not  to  lay  our 
transgressions  upon  the  Divine  victim,  and 
yet  stand  ourselves  afar  off,  and  without  per- 
sonal communion  with  his  sufferings.  In  the 
typical  sacrifice,  the  hands  of  the  offerer  were 
laid  upon  the  head  of  the  offering,  and  thus 
was  declared  the  identity  of  the  offerer  and 
the  offering.  In  the  antitype,  faith  lays  its 
hand  upon  the  head  of  the  Lamb  of  God,  not 
simply  that  it  may  thereby  transfer  guilt  to 
the  guilt-bearer,  but  that  it  may  join  in  sol- 
emn unity  of  suffering,  the  sinner  and  the 
sin-offering.  Thus  the  judgment  of  the  cross 
is  intensely  personal.  Not  sin  only,  but  na- 
ture ;  not  nature  only,  but  personality  is  there 


IN  CHRIST.  35 

brought  to  trial.  "  Knowing  this,  that  our 
old  man  was  crucified  with  Him."  J  The  nail 
that  pierced  the  handwriting  of  ordinances 
that  was  against  us  to  blot  it  out,  went 
deeper,  and  transfixed  also  the  subjects  of 
those  ordinances  to  inflict  on  them  the  pen- 
alty it  prescribed.  And  now  henceforth  we 
behold  Christ  and  his  Church  scarred  with 
the  same  wounds.  And  they  who  once  could 
only  ask  of  the  Redeemer,  "  What  are  these 
wounds  in  thy  hands  ? "  can  now  answer  their 
question  by  showing  their  own  hands  and 
saying,  "  I  bear  in  my  body  the  marks  of  the 
Lord  Jesus." 

While  now  some  reject  this  heritage  of  the 
cross  by  their  denial  of  Christ,  many  also  by 
denying  Adam's  sin  deny  Christ's  death, 
and  thrust  it  from  them !  The  bitterest  re- 
pining which  the  human  heart  has  ever 
known  has  .been  against  that  utterance  of 
the  Spirit,  "  By  one  man's  disobedience  many 
were  made  sinners."2  But  may  it  not  be 
that  that  solemn  law  which  makes  the  fall  of 
one  involve  the  fall  of  many,  is  the  only  law 
which  could  make  the  rising  of  one  to  be  the 
rising  of  many  ?  A  common  nature  ruined 

1  Rom.  vi.  6.*  f  Rom.  v.  19. 


36  IN  CHRIST. 

would  seem  even  by  its  overshadowing  curse 
to  proclaim  the  possibility  of  a  common  na- 
ture redeemed.  Who  knows  whether,  if  men 
could  only  have  sinned  and  fallen  as  separate 
units,  they  must  not  have  been  restored  by  sep- 
arate redemptions  ?  We  will  not  speculate 
on  such  a  theme.  Rather  will  we  joyfully  re- 
turn to  what  God  has  revealed,  that  as  in  the 
sin  of  one  "  all  sinned,"  l  so  in  the  penal  death 
of  one  "all  died."2  All  died!  Wonderful 
words !  Christ's  death  does  not  supersede 
ours.  It  implies  and  recognizes  it,  as,  in  the 
civil  compact,  the  vote  of  the  representative 
implies  the  vote  of  the  people.  What  Christ 
did/<?r  us,  was  done  by  us  in  the  divine  reck- 
oning, because  done  by  Him  who  was  of  us 
as  Head  and  Surety.3  We  say  Christ  died 
that  we  might  live.  In  a  deeper  sense  it  is 
true  that  He  died  that  we  might  die ;  might 
die  a  death  painless  to  ourselves  but  satisfy- 
ing to  the  law  —  a  death  of  such  intensity 
and  merit  that  it  should  expiate  at  once  the 
penalty  of  our  sins,  instead  of  requiring  an 
eternity  of  woe.  O,  blessed  privilege  !  "  Ye 
shall  indeed  drink  of  my  cup"  is  a  promise 
realized  unto  us  as  well  as  unto  the  two  disci- 

l  Rom.  v.  12.  2  2  Cor.  v.  14.  8  Note  E. 


IN  CHRIST.  37 

pies.  But  it  is  only  a  cup  of  blessing  to  us. 
He  drank  the  vinegar  and  gall  of  pain  and 
agony.  He  leaves  us  only  the  precious  wine 
of  consolation.  And  thus  we  enter  into  com- 
munion with  his  sufferings,  and  become  par- 
takers of  his  death.  "  If  one  died  for  all,  then 
all  died."  But  how  differently  the  One  from 
the  all  !  He  bore  the  pain  of  death  ;  they 
bear  only  the  merit  of  it.  He  gives  infinite 
worthiness  to  the  act  by  his  divinity ;  they 
receive  the  purchase  of  the  act  in  their  hu- 
manity. And  yet  nothing  is  deducted  from 
the  full  assurance  that  they  have  died.  Such 
u  is  the  personal  initiation  into  the  mystery 
of  sacrifice  "  which  we  receive  through  faith. 

We  see  at  once  where  this  blessed  fact 
places  us  —  even  in  perfect  reconciliation  to 
a  violated  law.  God  has  said,  "  The  soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die."  The  soul  has  sinned, 
and  it  has  died  in  Christ.  The  law  has  said, 
"  Cursed  is  every  one  that  continueth  not  in 
all  things  which  are  written  in  the  book  of 
the  law  to  do  them."  None  have  continued 
in  obedience.  But  Christ  hath  been  "  made 
a  curse  for  us  ; "  for  it  is  written,  "Cursed  is 
every  one  that  hangeth  on  a  tree."  Hence, 
crucified  with  Christ,  we  have  been  accursed 


38  IN  CHRIST. 

in  Him.  Not  one  jot  or  tittle  has  then 
passed  away  from  the  law,  but  all  has  been 
fulfilled.1 

How  affecting  this  perfect  literalness,  this 
rigid  honesty,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  in  the  deal- 
ings of  our  Surety  with  the  law  !  And  with 
what  triumphant  assurance  it  enables  us  to 
take  up  and  repeat  that  verdict  of  our  ac- 
quittal from  condemnation,  "  He  that  hath 
died  hath  been  jitstified  from  sin."  2 

But,  alas  !  how  slow  is  our  faith  to  enter 
into  the  fullness  of  this  gospel !  As  that 
deep  hunger  for  expiation  which  the  sense  of 
sin  begets,  begins  to  gnaw  the  soul,  many 
seek  to  appease  it  by  mere  self-crucifixion. 
If  not  with  the  scourge  and  sackcloth  of  the 
ascetic,  yet  with  the  vinegar  and  gall  of  sharp 
remorse  ;  with  the  compunctions  of  a  bleed- 
ing and  unhealed  heart,  striving  to  satisfy 
that  law,  which, from  the  soul  of  man  as  well  as 
from  the  statute-book  of  God,  proclaims  that 
without  the  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  re- 
mission. Nothing  is  more  painful  to  behold 
than  this  search  for  the  cross,  which  ends 
only  in  a  wounded  self;  in  a  conscience  that 
is  laying  on  itself  the  chastisement  of  its 
1  Note  F.  2  Rom.  vi.  7.* 


IN  CHRIST.  39 

peace,  and  in  a  broken  spirit  that  is  striving 
to  heal  itself  with  its  own  stripes.  The  gospel 
neither  demands  nor  will  take  any  such  offer- 
ing from  the  sinner.  Reversing  that  well- 
known  sentiment  of  legalism,  its  emphatic 
declaration  is,  — 

"  The  cross  in  thine  own  heart  will  never  save  thy  soul, 
The  cross  on  Golgotha  alone  can  make  thee  whole." 

Here,  as  everywhere,  the  Master's  words 
meet  us,  to  call  us  away  from  all  self-help. 
"  Without  me  ye  can  do  nothing."  As  high 
as  the  heaven  is  above  the  earth,  so  far 
is  the  distance  from  the  self-crucifixion  to 
crucifixion  in  Christ?-  To  pass  from  the  one 
to  the  other  requires  but  a  single  trusting 
look  of  faith.  But  it  is  to  cross  "  the  whole 
diameter  of  being"  between  the  spotless 
Lamb  of  God  and  the  guilty  children  of  men. 
That  there  is  a  sacrificing  of  self  that  is  in- 

1  How  vivid  a  reflection  of  his  own  experience  do  we 
find  in  Luther's  pithy  comment  on  these  words  :  "  I  am 
crucified  with  Christ."  "  Paul  speaketh  not  here  of  crucify- 
ing by  imitation  or  example  ;  but  he  speaketh  of  that  high 
crucifying  whereby  sin,  the  devil,  and  death,  are  crucified 
in  Christ  and  not  in  me.  Here  Christ  Jesus  doth  all  Him- 
self alone.  But  believing  in  Christ,  I  am  by  faith  crucified 
also  with  Christ ;  so  that  all  these  things  are  crucified  and 
dead  with  me."  —  Commentary  on  Galatians. 


4O  IN  CHRIST. 

separable  from  the  gospel  idea  of  discipleship 
is  unquestionable.  But  it  is  not  that  which 
is  wrought  for  obtaining  peace  with  God,  but 
that  which  grows  out  of  a  peace  already  ob- 
tained in  the  crucified  Christ.  The  whole 
course  of  the  divine  life  is  from  Christ  to  self, 
and  not  from  self  to  Christ.  To  begin  an  ex- 
piation in  one's  own  sufferings,  hoping  that  it 
may  end  in  fellowship  and  union  with  Christ's 
sufferings,  is  not  only  to  transpose,  but  com- 
pletely to  vitiate  the  order  of  grace.  There 
is  nothing  of  ours,  soul,  body,  or  spirit,  that  is 
without  blemish.  And  when  we  understand 
that  our  very  tears  need  themselves  to  be 
washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Redeemer,  and 
our  very  penitence  to  be  sanctified  in  his  ex- 
ceeding sorrow,  we  shall  gladly  turn  wholly 
to  the  perfect  offering.  And  so  from  that  re- 
liance on  penance  and  mortification,  which, 
however  sincere,  is  an  obtrusion  of  self  into 
that  realm  of  sacrifice  which  Christ  alone  can 
fill ;  and  from  that  searching  in  a  bruised  and 
excruciated  conscience  for  peace,  which,  how- 
ever honest,  is  but  an  attempt  to  discover  in 
self  that  sin-offering  which  can  only  be  found 
in  the  bleeding  Lamb  of  God,  how  gratefully 
we  turn  to  Christ  crucified  as  our  only  true 


IN  CHRIST.  41 

resting  place  for  comfort !  "  Let  me  know 
that  I  have  repented  enough  and  suffered 
enough,"  is  the  voice  of  a  faith  that  is  still  in 
bondage  to  law.  The  voice  of  a  faith  that  is 
free  is,  "  Let  me  hear  that  Christ  died  in  the 
stead  of  sinners,  of  whom  I  am  chief;  that 
He  was  forsaken  of  God,  during  these  fearful 
agonies,  because  He  had  taken  my  place ; 
that  on  his  cross  I  paid  the  penalty  of  my  guilt. 
Let  me  hear  too  that  his  blood  cleanseth  from 
all  sin,  and  that  I  may  now  appear  before  the 
bar  of  God,  not  only  pardoned,  but  innocent. 
Let  me  realize  the  great  mystery  of  the  recip- 
rocal substitution  of  Christ  and  the  believer, 
or  rather  their  perfect  unity,  He  in  them  and 
they  in  Him,  which  He  has  expressly  taught; 
and  let  me  believe  that  /  was  in  effect  cruci- 
fied on  Calvary,  and  He  will  in  effect  stand 
before  the  throne  in  my  person  ;  his  the  pen- 
alty, mine  the  sin  ;  his  the  shame,  mine  the 
glory  ;  his  the  thorns,  mine  the  crown  ;  his 
the  merit,  mine  the  reward.  Verily,  thou 
shalt  answer  for  me,  O  Lord,  my  Redeemer. 
In  Thee  do  I  put  my  trust,  let  me  never  be 
confounded."  J 

Do  we  ask  then  what  our  death  in  Christ 

1  Bishop  Le  Jeune. 


42  IN  CHRIST. 

has  accomplished  for  us  ?  What  has  it  not 
accomplished  ?  Like  the  flaming  sword 
which  drove  man  out  of  Paradise,  and  which 
turned  every  way,  to  keep  the  tree  of  life,  this 
weapon  of  redemption  with  which  the  Captain 
of  our  salvation  opened  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
to  all  believers,  presents  a  destroying  edge  to 
every  foe  that  stands  across  our  track. 

The  world,  whose  friendship  has  been  our 
deepest  enmity  to  God,  because  drawing  our 
best  affections  and  diverting  our  truest  life 
from  Him,  is  at  last  overcome.  The  cross  has 
sundered  us  from  its  enslaving  bondage.  "By 
whom  the  world  is  crucified  unto  me,  and  I 
unto  the  world?  Allure  us  for  a  season  it 
may ;  draw  us  to  its  pleasures  it  sometimes 
will.  But  from  the  moment  we  know  our- 
selves dead  with  Christ,  its  tyranny  is  broken. 
"  How  shall  we  who  died  to  sin,  live  any  longer 
therein  ?  "  *  To  go  back  to  the  world  from 
which  we  have  thus  been  separated,  we  must 
despise  the  cross  of  our  redemption,  tramp- 
ling on  the  blood  of  the  covenant  wherewith 
we  are  sanctified,  and  compelling  our  Master 
to  retrace  the  Via  Dolorosa  of  his  agony,  that 
we  may  crucify  Him  afresh,  and  put  Him  to 
an  open  shame. 

1  Rom.  vi.  2.* 


IN  CHRIST.  43 

"Thefas/1,  warring  against  the  Spirit,  violat- 
ing every  truce  with  conscience,  breaking 
every  covenant  which  we  have  made  with 
God  —  behold,  this  enemy  from  whom  we 
cannot  flee,  has  yet  received  his  death  wound. 
Christ  put  a  nail  through  him  when  He  gave 
his  own  body  to  the  smiters.  "  And  they  that 
are  Christ's  have  crucified  the  flesh  with  the 
affections  and  lusts."  Wounded  unto  death, 
yet  struggling  for  his  lost  dominion,  we  shall 
never  be  wholly  quit  of  him,  till  the  grave 
closes  over  him.  But  in  God's  reckoning  we 
are  even  now  delivered.  "  Ye  are  not  in  the 
flesh  but  in  the  Spirit."  Upon  our  natural 
and  guilt-attainted  man,  justice  has  executed 
his  death-warrant,  and  is  satisfied.  In  words 
traced  by  the  infallible  spirit  of  truth,  we  have 
the  record  of  his  decease :  "  Ye  died,  and 
your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God."  1 

When  the  Judge  calls  for  us  now  as  He  did 
of  old  for  Adam,  saying,  "Where  art  thou?" 
He  will  no  longer  seek  the  living  among  the 
dead.  Our  life,  the  life  of  which  He  now 
takes  cognizance,  is  hid  in  Christ.  In  Him 
will  He  find  it,  and  not  in  the  charnel-house 
of  our  dead  man.  What  are  these  evil  habits 
1  CoL  UL  3.* 


44  IN  CHRIST. 

that  are  still  clinging  about  us,  but  the  relics 
of  that  old  and  crucified  nature  !  What  are 
these  sins  that  pain  us  and  make  us  cry  out 
with  sorrow,  but  the  motions  and  death  throes 
of  that  body  that  has  been  doomed  by  the  de- 
cree of  the  cross  !  Confess  them  sorrowfully 
and  with  shame  we  must  ;  but  we  may  tri- 
umphantly own  that  "  they  belong  to  the  old 
man,  and  we  are  carrying  them  to  the  grave 
to  be  buried  with  their  owner."  Even  Satan, 
the  head  and  instigator  of  all  other  enemies, 
has  been  disarmed  and  doomed.  Christ  took 
on  flesh  that  He  might  destroy  him  that  had 
the  power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil,  and 
"  deliver  them  who,  through  fear  of  death, 
were  all  their  life-time  subject  to  bondage." 

Rejoice,  then,  O  saint,  in  your  rescue  from 
"  the  Terrible  Captain  and  his  standard- 
bearer."  On  Calvary,  Christ  triumphed  over 
death  by  becoming  the  victim  of  death.  That 
eternal  terror  that  was  once  before  you,  He  by 
his  cross  has  put  forever  behind  you.  It  can- 
not cast  one  threatening  shadow  across  your 
pathway  now.  It  cannot  wring  one  pang  of 
foreboding  agony  from  your  soul.  "  Death 
stung  itself  to  death,  when  it  stung  Christ." J 

1  Komaine. 


IN  CHRIST.  45 

Recognizing  now  the  realness  of  this  union 
with  Christ  in  his  death,  and  the  fullness  of 
blessing  that  grows  therefrom,  it  only  remains 
for  the  believer  to  make  the  truth  real  to  his 
own  experience.  Beholding  how  God  has  set 
Christ's  death  to  our  account,  through  our 
partnership  with  Him,  set  it  also  yourself  to 
your  account  and  take  possession  of  the  riches 
of  grace  and  mercy  which  are  thus  made 
yours.  "  In  that  He  died,  He  died  unto  sin 
once.  .  .  .  Likewise  reckon  ye  also  yourselves 
to  be  dead  indeed  nnto  sin." 

We  will  by  no  means  say  that  this  reckon- 
ing will  be  painless.  Adam's  nature  dies 
hard  within  us  ;  and  before  we  can  own  the 
justice  of  its  sentence,  or  acquiesce  in  its  con- 
demnation, there  will  doubtless  be  wrought 
within  us,  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  some  bitter  ex- 
perimental fellowship  with  Christ's  sufferings. 
Our  sins  will  find  us  out,  and  the  death  that 
is  by  sin.  We  shall  feel  the  terrible  dealing 
of  our  Judge  with  our  consciences.  There 
will  be  strong  crying  and  tears  ;  perhaps  the 
darkness  of  desertion,  the  rending  of  the 
rocky  heart,  and  the  sense  of  deserved  wrath 
piercing  the  soul  as  with  a  two-edged  sword. 
It  may  be  long  before  we  can  yield  up  the 


46  IN  CHRIST. 

ghost  of  the  natural  man  and  renounce  all 
trust  in  him  forever.  But  once  enabled  to  ac- 
count ourselves  dead  in  Him,  what  a  deliver- 
ance is  ours ! 

Standing  by  the  cross  now,  we  discern  in 
the  gloom  and  power  of  darkness  that  gather 
round  it,  that  "outer  darkness"  which  had 
been  ours  forever  out  of  Christ.  In  that 
plaintive  "  Eloi,  Eloi"  we  hear  what  had  been 
our  cry  of  despair  unanswered  forever,  except 
we  had  been  found  in  Him.  In  that  dread- 
ful rending  cry  which  delivers  up  the  spirit, 
we  own  the  due  reward  of  our  deeds,  while 
confessing  that  this  man  hath  done  nothing 
amiss.  But  now  all  these  things  are  passed 
forever  both  for  Him  and  for  us,  as  soon  as 
the  "  //  is  finished"  has  been  spoken.  And 
lo !  the  foregleams  of  the  resurrection  break 
upon  us.  The  light  of  a  certain  and  triumph- 
ant hope  enters  our  heart.  Remembering 
that  we  are  joined  to  Him  who  said,  "I  lay 
down  my  life  that  I  may  take  it  again,"  we 
cease  from  tears  and  follow  Him,  saying  as 
we  hasten  onward,  "  Now  if  we  be  dead  with 
Him,  we  believe  that  we  shall  also  live  with 
Him." 


III.     RESURRECTION   IN 
CHRIST. 


0T  pe  tfjcn  Be  risen  tuirt)  Cjjrist, 
tfto.se  tljingtf  tof)itj)  arc  afiofcc,  toljere 
Cjrist  £itt,  tf)  ontjjc  ng^t  j)an&  of  <2Boti. 

Cc>/.  iii.  I. 


tuljo  i^  ricfj  in  mcrcp,  for 
great  lobe  toftcrctoul)  Jfe  loteD  11^,  ctoeu 
tugen  Uic  U.ICIT  oeaD  in  sins,  l>iti)  quirk? 
cneD  110  togectjer  tuitj  Christ  ;  (Dp  0rare 
pe  are  sa\3eti  ;)  anU  Ijatl)  rai^eeti  ti^  tig 
together,  ano  maDc  u^  sit  together  in 
jjea\jenlp  ^larc.tf,  in  Christ  3esiiief. 

Eph.  ii.  4-6. 

3Cnti  pou,  being  oeab  in  pour  s'ins  ano 
t^e  uncircunicision  of  pour  ffest), 
i)c  quirkeneo  together  Until  Dun, 
ma  forgiucn  pou  all  trespasses. 

Col.  U.  13. 


III. 

RESURRECTION  IN  CHRIST. 

|NE  with  Christ  in  his  dying,  we  must 
be  one  with  Him  also  in  his  resur- 
rection. For  the  bands  of  this  mys- 
tic union  are  not  dissolved  or  weakened  while 
the  Saviour  lies  in  the  tomb.  Joined  to  his 
people,  that  He  might  carry  them  with  Him 
through  the  pains  and  penalties  of  death,  He 
now  in  the  same  gracious  partnership  of  be- 
ing brings  them  up  again  from  the  dead. 
And  so  "  He  spreads  the  mighty  miracle  of 
his  own  regeneration  from  the  dead,  along 
the  whole  line  of  history.  He  repeats  it  in 
every  true  believer.  The  Church's  is  an  ever- 
lasting Easter." 1 

There   is   doubtless  the  same   theoretical 
difficulty  in  conceiving  of  the  believer  as  hav- 
ing been  raised   in  Christ's  resurrection,  as 
there  is  in  conceiving  of  Him  as  having  died 
*  Archer  Butler. 


5O  IN   CHRIST. 

in  his  crucifixion.  And  hence,  as  some  read 
that  very  striking  and  explicit  word  of  the 
Spirit,  "  If  then  ye  were  raised  together  with 
Christ," J  they  find  it  much  easier  to  remand 
the  expression  to  the  realm  of  metaphor,  than 
to  accept  it  literally  and  without  Condition. 

But  we  are  to  remember  that  the  resurrec- 
tion is  not  merely  a  historical  fact,  the  trans- 
cendent miracle  and  mystery  of  the  apos- 
tolic age.  Certainly  it  is  all  that.  But  it  is 
more.  It  is  a  moral  event,  a  principle  of 
spiritual  energy,  as  well  as  a  fact  of  human 
history.  While  to  those  therefore  who  see 
Christ  only  from  the  outer  court  of  knowl- 
edge, and  whose  faith  ends  in  the  bare  belief 
that  "  He  died  and  rose  again  according  to 
the  Scriptures"  the  mystery  may  remain : 
to  those  who  press  into  the  inner  sanctuary 
of  fellowship,  praying  that  they  may  "  know 
Him  and  the  power  of  his  resurrection"  it 
will  be  more  and  more  laid  open  to  them  as 
they  advance.  What  the  power  of  Christ's 
resurrection  is,  we  may  infer  from  the  close- 
ness of  its  relation  in  the  gospel  to  spiritual 
renewal  and  justification,  as  well  as  to  phys- 
ical reanimation 

i  CoL  iii.  i.« 


IN  CHRIST.  51 

It  is  a  judicial  power,  and  it  is  a  regenera- 
tive power.  The  first  only  as  crowning  and 
sealing  the  judgment  of  the  cross,  so  that 
whereas  Christ's  death  was  our  justification 
procured,  his  rising  was  our  justification  jus- 
tified. And  the  second  only  as  related  to  the 
Spirit,  so  that  while  it  is  the  Holy  Ghost  that 
renews,  it  is  clearly  only  from  the  risen 
Christ  that  the  soul  derives  its  life  in  renewal 
"  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 

Let  us  trace  these  two  thoughts  into  their 
details.  How  clearly  our  resurrection  is 
linked  with  Christ's,  for  the  assurance  of  par- 
don, in  this  passage  :  "  And  you,  being  dead 
in  your  sins  and  the  uncircumcision  of  your 
flesh,  hath  He  quickened  together  tvith  Him, 
having  forgiven  you  all  trespasses"  1  That 
forgiveness  was  fully  accomplished  when  He 
had  pronounced  the  "  It  is  finished  "  on  the 
cross.  For  then  had  He  blotted  out  the 
dark  score  of  disobedience  that  was  against 
us,  having  nailed  it  to  the  cross.  And  this 
verily  was  decisive  and  final,  "a  nail  fastened 
in  a  sure  place."  But  the  pardon  thus  writ- 
ten in  his  blood  waited  to  be  sealed  and  at- 
tested by  his  resurrection.  For  though  He 
1  Col.  il  13. 


52  IN  CHRIST. 

had  spoiled  principalities  and  powers  by  his 
death,  only  by  bursting  the  bars  of  the  grave 
could  He  "  make  a  show  of  them,  openly  tri- 
umphing over  them  in  Himself." 

And  so,  while  in  the  blood  of  the  dying 
Christ  we  see  the  title  of  our  pardon,  we  wait 
for  a  luminous  glance  from  the  risen  Christ 
to  bring  it  out  into  full  distinctness  and  sig- 
nificance. An  inheritance  may  be  ours  and 
yet  not  ours  ;  ours  in  effect,  because  the  deed 
of  it  has  been  executed  ;  but  not  ours  to 
certain  knowledge  and  apprehension,  since 
we  have  not  received  it.  The  heritage  of 
peace  which  became  ours  by  the  death  of  the 
Testator,  faith  cannot  take  while  He  lies  in 
the  grave.  We  must  see  our  Eliakim,  who 
openeth  and  no  man  shutteth,  returning  from 
the  tomb  with  the  key  of  the  House  of  David 
laid  upon  his  shoulder,1  before  we  can  enter 
with  Him  into  our  purchased  possession. 
So  vital  is  this  to  our  assurance  of  faith,  that 
Paul  says,  "  If  Christ  be  not  raised,  your 
faith  is  vain,  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins."  a  Ye 
died  with  Christ,  ye  in  Him  and  He  in  your 
sins  that  were  upon  Him  ;  ye  were  buried 
with  Christ,  ye  in  Him  still,  and  He  in  your 

1  Isaiah  xxii.  22.  3  I  Cor.  xv.  17. 


IN  CHRIST.  53 

sins  still.  If  He  lies  yet  in  that  dark  un- 
opened grave,  .ye  lie  there  yet,  in  your  sins, 
because  in  Him  who  went  down  into  the  tomb 
with  those  sins  upon  Him.  Faith  cannot 
place  the  disciple  above  his  Master.  It  can 

> 

only  make  him  to  be  as  his  Master,  a  sharer 
in  his  condition,  a  partner  in  his  destiny. 
Now  while  our  Lord's  sufferings  in  the  flesh 
were  completed  when  He  yielded  up  the 
ghost,  He  was  not  disentangled  from  our 
guilt  so  long  as  He  lay  in  the  tomb.  How 
then  shall  our  faith  outrun  Him,  and  reach 
the  vantage  ground  of  the  resurrection,  while 
the  grave  still  holds  Him  in  its  grim  impris- 
onment ?  How  shall  we  break  the  bands  of 
condemnation  and  cast  away  its  cords  from 
us,  if  it  be  possible  for  Him  to  be  "  holden  of 
death  ?  "  And  yet  He  is  so  holden,  if  a  sin- 
gle item  of  the  debt  of  sin  is  left  uncanceled. 
"  The  wages  of  sin  is  death  ;  "  and  that  wages 
must  be  paid  to  the  full.  "  Thou  shalt  by  no 
means  come  out  thence  till  thou  hast  paid 
the  uttermost  farthing,"  says  an  inexorable 
law  ;  and  if  He  is  holden,  we  are  holden  with 
Him,  because  of  that  faith  that  has  linked  us 
into  indissoluble  partnership  with  his  destiny. 
Such  is  the  certain  inference  from  that  dreary 
hypothesis,  "  If  Christ  be  not  raised." 


54  IK  CHRIST. 

"  But  now  is  Christ  risen  from  the  dead." 
And  since  we  are  risen  with  Him,  we  are  not 
in  our  sins.  In  his  renewal  from  the  dead, 
we  were  lifted  forever  from  their  dark  enfold- 
ing condemnation.  They  cannot  bind  a  sin- 
gle fetter  on  us  now  ;  they  cannot  remand  us 
for  a  single  instant  to  the  prison-house  of 
despair.  Because  "  the  God  of  peace  has 
brought  again  from  the  dead  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  that  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep,"  all 
the  flock  folded  in  Him  by  faith,  are  safe. 
"  They  shall  never  perish,  neither  shall  any 
man  pluck  them  out  of  his  hands." 

That  the  remains  of  sin  are  still  clinging 
to  us,  we  are  only  too  painfully  conscious. 
Not  like  the  sinless  Lord  have  we  put  off  all 
the  cerements  of  our  body  of  death.  Walk- 
ing with  Him  in  the  same  resurrection,  we 
are  as  yet  like  Lazarus  bound  hand  and  foot 
with  the  grave-clothes — the  habits  of  sin 
that  still  cling  to  us,  the  power  of  evil  that 
enthralls  us  ;  and  we  wait  in  eager  expect- 
ancy the  last  resurrection  word  that  shall 
say,  "  Loose  him,  and  let  him  go."  But  not 
the  less  truly  are  we  alive  with  Christ  from 
the  dead,  and  death,  the  penalty  of  sin,  can 
have  no  more  dominion  over  us. 


IN  CHRIST.  55 

This  truth  is  most  strikingly  told  again  in 
those  words  of  the  Apostle,  "  Who  was  deliv- 
ered for  our  offenses,  and  raised  again  for  our 
justification,"  —  literally,  "  delivered  because  of 
our  offenses,  and  raised  because  of  our  justifi- 
cation." *  So  enwrapped  was  He  in  our  sins 
that  were  upon  Him,  that  he  could  not  escape 
from  death.  But  when  the  justification  of 
us  who  are  in  Him  had  been  accomplished, 
He  could  not  be  detained  by  death.  And  so 
because  our  justification  was  completed,  He 
was  raised  again.  What  an  affecting  empha- 
sis is  here  again  laid  upon  the  doctrine  of  our 
Lord's  union  with  his.  people  !  Their  cause 
is  so  thoroughly  his  own  that  He  cannot  out- 
strip them  a  single  step  in  the  path  of  re- 
demption. Opener  of  the  prison  doors  to 
them  that  are  bound,  He  yet  waits  till  the 
last  demand  of  justice  has  been  satisfied,  be- 
fore He  comes  through  the  gate  of  the  grave 
to  lead  them  out.  The  members  must  be 
with  their  Head.  They  are  his  fullness,  and 
without  them  He  cannot  be  made  perfect 
He  wails  till  the  weary  hours  of  their  prison 
service  are  completed  in  their  Surety.  He 
cannot  accept  deliverance  while  they  are  un- 
i  Note  G. 


56  IN  CHRIST. 

der  condemnation.  But  when  the  full  ac- 
quittal has  been  secured,  the  glorious  prom- 
ise is  fulfilled,  "  The  third  day  I  shall  be  per- 
fected." Aye,  thou  mighty  Captain  of  our 
Salvation,  thou  first  Begotten  from  the  dead, 
because  thou  wilt  then  have  " perfected  for- 
ever them  that  are  sanctified? 

I  am  aware  of  a  certain  holy  jealousy  for 
the  honor  of  the  cross,  that  restrains  some 
from  ascribing  justifying  efficacy  to  the  res- 
urrection of  Christ.  But  let  it  be  marked 
that  it  is  not  atoning  justification  which  we 
attribute  to  it,  but  "  manifestive  justifica- 
tion" as  Edwards  so  exactly  names  it.  And 
a  guilty  conscience  needs  this  as  well  as  the 
other.  The  prisoner  does  not  know  himself 
free,  though  he  has  served  out  to  its  last  day 
and  hour  his  term  of  sentence,  if  the  prison 
doors  still  remain  shut  upon  him.  Prisoners 
of  hope,  bound  with  Christ  under  the  law,  we 
are  not  fully  assured  of  our  deliverance,  when 
we  can  reckon  ourselves  dead  with  Him, 
though  justice  is  thereby  satisfied.  We  wait 
for  the  angel  to  descend  from  heaven  —  mes- 
senger of  peace  to  us  because  deputy  of  jus- 
tice to  Him  —  to  roll  back  the  stone  from  the 
door  of  the  sepulchre.  The  wounded  hands 


IN  CHRIST.  57 

and  feet,  the  dying  cry  that  yields  up  the 
Spirit,  and  the  lifeless  body  at  last  lying  in 
the  tomb,  are  the  tokens  of  the  price  paid. 
But  the  empty  tomb,  the  folded  napkin,  and 
the  linen  clothes  laid  by  themselves,  these 
are  the  tokens  of  the  price  accepted,  of  the 
prisoner's  discharge,  and  of  the  loosing  of  the 
pains  of  death  forever,  from  all  who  died  in 
Christ.  And  so  to  all  questionings  of  a  timid 
or  doubting  conscience,  the  answer  now  is, 
"  Who  is  he  that  condemneth  ?  It  is  Christ 
that  died,  yea  rather,  that  is  risen  again,  who 
is  even  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  who  also 
maketh  intercession  for  us."  x 

But  not  only  does  our  resurrection  in 
Christ  raise  us  out  of  condemnation  ;  it  also 
lifts  us  into  a  new  life  in  Him.  In  Christ 
crucified  we  put  off  the  old  man,  in  Christ 
risen  we  put  on  the  new  man.  The  cross 
was  for  the  destruction  of  the  body  of  sin  ; 
-the  resurrection  was  for  imparting  to  us  the 

1  Rom.  viiL  34. 

"  Le  Chretien  eclair^  sur  la  resurrection  de  notre  Sau- 
veur  jouit  de  1'assurance  de  son  salut ;  il  en  est  aussi  sflr, 
qu'il  est  sur  que  Jesus  Christ  est  ressuscite"  ;  et  pour  le 
faire  douter  de  son  espe"rance  eternelle,  il  faudrait  com- 
mencer  par  le  faire  douter  que  Jesus  Christ  est  ressuscitd 
des  morts."  —  Adolf  he  Monod. 


58  IN  CHRIST. 

principle  of  divine  life.  By  his  crucifixion, 
our  Redeemer  accomplished  a  twofold  death 
for  us.  He  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh}  ex- 
hausting at  once  the  eternal  penalties  that 
were  menacing  the  soul  of  man,  and  inflicting 
on  the  body  that  death  sentence  which  will 
be  fully  consummated  for  every  believer  when 
he  lies  down  in  the  grave.  By  his  resurrec- 
tion He  makes  us  the  subjects  of  a  twofold 
regeneration  —  the  regeneration  of  the  soul 
in  this  life,  and  that  of  the  body  in  the  life  to 
come  ;  both  of  which  are  expressly  said  to 
make  us  sons  of  God,  because  the  one  only 
completes  and  consummates  the  other  ;  and 
in  both  of  which  we  are  "  the  children  of  God, 
being  children  of  the  resurrection." 

For  the  renewed  body  we  still  wait  with 
all  saints  in  eager  longing  till  we  be  clothed 
upon  at  the  resurrection.  The  renewed  soul 
we  already  have  in  Christ.  "  Blessed  be  the 
God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
which  according  to  his  abundant  mercy,  hath 
begotten  us  again  unto  a  lively  hope,  by  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead."3 
Wonderful  words !  It  is  not  merely  a  poten- 
tial renewal  that  is  here  indicated,  the  laying 
1  Rom.  viii.  3.  a  I  Pet  L  3. 


Tff  CHRIST.  59 

of  a  basis  for  a  possible  but  still  future  regen- 
eration. We  that  believe,  are  already  "  risen 
with  Him,  through  the  faith  of  the  operation 
of  God."  The  old  life,  with  its  kindredship  to 
«Adam,  with  its  heritage  of  his  curse,  with  its 
clinging  incubus  of  his  death,  is  put  off  at  his 
grave.  In  the  second  Adam  we  now  live. 
And  "  as  He  is,  so  are  we  in  this  world."  He 
is  "  the  first  fruits  of  them  that  slept." l  "  And 
if  the  first  fruits  be  holy,  so  also  is  the  lump." 
He  is  "  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with 
power  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead." 
In  the  same  divine  recognition  do  we  likewise 
receive  the  adoption  of  sons.  Willingly  as  He 
endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame,  did 
He  say,  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou 
forsaken  me,"  making  no  mention  of  us  for 
whom  He  was  forsaken.  But  now,  as  He  is 
about  to  sit  down  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
throne  of  God,  bringing  all  the  members  of 
his  mystical  body  to  be  seated  with  Him  in 
the  heavenly  places,  we  hear  Him  saying,  "  I 
ascend  unto  my  Father  and  your  Father,  unto 
my  God  and  your  God,"  thus  suggesting  with 
the  most  exquisite  tenderness  their  oneness 
with  Him  in  his  now  recovered  fellowship. 

1  I  Cor.  xv.  20. 


6o 


IN  CHRIST. 


What  a  place  then  does  the  sepulchre  of 
Jesus  occupy !  It  is  the  border  line  and 
meeting  place  of  law  and  grace.  It  is  the 
solemn  pause,  "  the  divine  ellipsis "  in  the 
work  of  redemption,  whence  we  look  back 
upon  the  old  nature,  the  old  sin,  and  the  old 
curse,  and  forward  upon  the  "  all  things  "  that 
"  are  become  new."  Standing  here  and  look- 
ing either  way,  we  see  how  Christ's  work 
divides  jtself  into  what  he  did  as  the  Sin- 
bearer,  and  what  he  did  as  the  Life-giver. 


In   his   Crucifixion, 
He  was  — 

"  Delivered    for    our    of- 
fenses." 

"  Put  to  death  in  the  flesh." 

"  In  that  He  died,  He  died 
unto  sin,  once." 

"  He  was  crucified  through 
weakness." 


In  his  Resurrection, 
He  was  — 

"  Raised  again  for  our  jus- 
tification." (Rom.  iv.  25.) 

"  Quickened  in  the  Spirit  " 
(I  Pet.  iii.  18.) 

"In  that  He  liveth,  He 
liveth  unto  God."  (Rom.  vi. 
10.) 

"  Yet  He  liveth  by  the 
power  of  God."  (2  Cor. 
xiii.  4.) 


By  his  death,  He  became  the  "  end  of  the 
law  to  every  one  that  believeth  ; "  by  his  resur- 
rection, He  became  "  the  beginning,  the  first- 
born from  the  dead."  There  the  root  of  the 
first  Adam  was  wounded  unto  death.  Here 


IN  CHRIST.  6l 

humanity  springs  up  anew,  and  from  a  new 
and  incorruptible  seed.  "  I- ant  tlie  true  Vine? 
says  Christ.  All  the  culture  and  pruning  of 
Judaism  had  failed  to  bring  the  stock  of  the 
first  Adam  to  any  satisfying  fruitfulness.  "I 
had  planted  thee  a  noble  vine,"  says  Jehovah, 
"  wholly  a  right  seed ;  how  art  thou  turned 
into  the  degenerate  plant  of  a  strange  vine 
unto  me  " l  Christ  risen  from  the  dead  was 
given  to  be  a  iuw  stock,  the  elect  and  best  of 
all  the  vineyard  of  heaven.  The  crucifixion 
was  the  uprooting  of  the  old.  the  crushing  of 
its  very  roots  as  well  as  the  clusters  of  its 
grapes  in  the  wine-press  of  the  wrath  of  God. 
The  resurrection  was  the  upspringing  of  the 
new,  the  true  vine.  And  all  who  are  truly 
renewed,  are  shoots  and  branches  of  that.  To 
be  incorporated  upon  that  vine,  —  to  abide  in 
it,  —  this  is  the  only  way  of  life,  because  the 
only  way  to  become  a  partaker  of  the  divine 
nature.  And  yet  how  many  are  trying  to-day 
to  revise  the  old,  digging  about  that  scathed 
and  unfruitful  stump  of  Adam's  nature,  hoping 
to  restore  it. — The  sacrarnentarian,  sprinkling 
it  with  the  "  baptismal  dew,"  thinking  that 
"  through  the  scent  of  water  it  may  bud  and 

1  Jer.  ii.  21. 


62  IN  CHRIST. 

bring  forth  boughs  like  a  plant ;  "  not  remem- 
bering that  by  the  death  and  burial  of  our 
Lord,  the  "  root  thereof  has  waxed  old  in  the 
earth,  and  the  stock  thereof  has  died  in  the 
ground"  —  The  moralist,  lopping  off  dead 
branches  and  pruning  away  excrescences, 
hoping  to  make  it  nobly  productive ;  not  re- 
membering that  by  the  crucifixion  of  Christ, 
"  the  axe  has  been  laid  at  the  root  of  the 
tree." 

To  be  in  Christ  the  risen  man,  then,  is  to 
have  eternal  life.  We  no  longer  trace  our 
genealogy  back  to  Adam  now.  That  registry 
has  been  annulled  for  those  whose  names  are 
written  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life.  The 
night  that  covered  Joseph's  tomb  was  the  last 
of  the  old  dispensation.  The  resurrection 
light  that  broke  at  length  upon  that  tomb 
was  the  day-dawn  of  the  new.  Only  from 
that  day  does  the  Church  of  the  redeemed 
begin.  "  Date  it  rather  from  the  day  of  Pen- 
tecost," does  some  one  say?  But  Resurrec- 
tion, Ascension,  and  Pentecost  would  seem  tc 
be  only  successive  stages  of  the  same  great 
transaction,  the  bringing  of  the  Church  into 
the  fullness  of  the  divine  life.  For  Christ's 
ascent  bodily  marks  his  descent  spiritually ; 


m  CHRIST.  63 

his  taking  our  nature  up  unto  God  the  bring- 
ing down  of  God's  life  to  us,  and  the  corn- 
mencement  of  his  dwelling  in  us  by  his  Spirit. 

And  this  is  our  risen  life,  however  we  con- 
ceive or  speak  of  it,  that  we  are  in  Him  and 
He  in  us.  It  is  a  life  as  far  removed  from 
that  of  Adam  as  the  heaven  from  the  earth, 
the  constant  partaking  of  Christ  who  is  the 
Life.  And  this  is  our  righteousness,  not  the 
name  or  the  credit  of  holiness  merely,  but  the 
righteousness  of  God  perpetually  upon  us, 
because  of  our  identification  with  Him  who 
is  made  unto  us  righteousness. 

The  Resurrection  of  our  Lord  then  is  not 
merely  a  pledge  of  our  own  ;  it  is  our  own  if 
we  are  his.1  All  that  it  did  for  Him,  we  may 
boldly  say  it  did  for  us  if  we  are  in  Him. 
True,  in  experience  much  of  its  blessing  is 
yet  future  and  embryonic  to  us,  as  it  is  not  to 

1  And  our  unbelief  is  naught  else  than  a  guilty  forfeiture 
of  what  has  been  graciously  bequeathed  to  us  by  Christ,  a 
refusal  to  be  embraced  in  that  resurrection  which  has  al- 
ready in  the  intention  and  provision  of  God  embraced  us. 
George  Herbert  touches  this  thought  very  delicately  in  those 
lines,  — 

"  Arise  sad  heart ;  ifthou  doit  not  withstand* 

Christ's  resurrection  thine  may  be  ; 

Do  not  by  hanging  down  break  from  tfu  hand, 

Which,  as  it  riseth,  raiseth  thee." 


64  W   CHRIST 

Him.  But  because  of  our  perfect  identity 
with  Him,  with  Him  to  whom  the  possible  and 
the  actual  are  ever  the  same,  all  is  counted 
as  present  to  us.  With  Him  we  are  "  not  in 
the  flesh,  but  in  the  Spirit."  With  Him  we 
are  "  seated  in  the  heavenly  places."  Hence 
that  same  strenuous  demand  which  the  Scrip- 
tures lay  upon  us  for  realizing  our  death  in 
Christ:  "Reckon  ye  yourselves  to  be  dead  in- 
deed," they  lay  upon  us  for  realizing  our  res- 
urrection in  Him  :  "  Seek  those  things  which 
are  above,  where  Christ  sitteth  on  the  right 
hand  of  God." 

And  can  we  conceive  of  any  more  effective 
motive  to  Christian  attainment,  than  this  ? 
In  Christ  Jesus  we  work  no  longer  for  life, 
but  from  life.  Our  high  endeavor  is  not  to 
shape  our  actual  life  in  the  flesh  into  con- 
formity to  an  ideal  life  that  is  set  before  us 
in  Him.  It  is  rather  to  reduce  our  true  life 
now  hid  in  Christ,  to  an  actual  life  in  our- 
self.  And  so  the  summons  of  the  gospel  is, 
not  that  we  behold  what  is  possible  for  us  in 
Christ,  and  reach  forth  to  it ;  but  rather  that 
we  behold  what  is  accomplished  for  us  in 
Christ,  and  appropriate  it  and  live  in  it 
Risen  with  Christ,  the  first-fruits  of  our 


IN  CHRIST.  65 

spirits  already  carried  up  with  Him  into 
glory,  our  life  hid  with  Him  in  God,  how 
shall  not  our  heart  be  where  our  treasure  is  ? 
How  shall  not  our  love  be  ever  kindling 
and  burning  upwards,  purging  itself  of  all 
earthly  dross,  till  it  is  wholly  intent  on  Him  ? 
Why  hang  the  damps  and  corruptions  of  the 
grave  about  us  still,  earthliness  and  sinful 
affections,  and  all  these  clinging  accompani- 
ments of  moral  death,  from  which  our  Lord  has 
ransomed  us  ?  It  is  ours  even  now  to  walk 
with  Him  in  white,  and  to  be  ever  "  breath- 
ing with  Him  the  freshness  of  the  morn- 
ing of  the  resurrection  and  of  endless  life." 
Risen  with  Him,  how  shall  we  not  more  and 
more  recognize  our  life  as  in  heaven,  and  be 
waiting  for  Him  who  is  our  life  to  appear? 
Not  as  the  sorrowing  Man  of  Nazareth,  not 
as  the  sinless  sufferer  of  Calvary,  do  we  wait 
to  see  Him  now.  "  The  root  and  tJtc  offspring 
of  David"  for  awhile  "  cut  off,  though  not  for 
Himself,"  He  comes  again  to  sit  upon  the 
throne  of  his  father  David.  "  The  bright  and 
morning  star"  hidden  now  behind  that  cloud 
that  has  for  a  little  time  received  Him  out  of 
our  sight,  He  soon  shall  startle  the  world  by 
the  "brightness  of  his  coming."  And  be- 
5 


66  IN  CHRIST. 

cause  we  are  seated  with  Him  now  in  the 
heavenly  places,  we  shall  be  seated  with  Him 
in  the  earthly  ;  because  our  life  is  one  with 
his  now,  his  manifestation  shall  be  our  mani- 
festation. "  When  Christ,  who  is  our  life,  shall 
appear,  then  shall  ye  also  appear  with  Him  in 
glory." 

And   so  we  wait  patiently  till   the  "  day 
dawn,  and  the  day-star  arise  in  our  hearts." 


IV.     BAPTISM    INTO   CHRIST. 


a£  manp  of  pou  a£  jjabc  been 
ti$co  into  €f)ri£t,  Jafcc  gut  on 

Gal.  iii.  27. 

Jtnoto  pe  not  tljat  ^o  manp  of  u£  a^ 
tocre  &ajm$c&  into  Cljri^t,  tucre  ba^^ 
ti3CD  into  ^i^  DcatJ)  ?  Cljercforc  tuc  are 
fturico  luitl)  ^im  bp  ba^tiam  into  Dcatl), 
ttjat  lihc  a #  Christ  Vua£  raiacb  u^  fcom 
tfte  ocao  bp  tljc  glocp  of  tf)c  father,  c\?cn 
^o  tue  ai^o  ^tjoiild  tualfe  in  nclunc^  of 

life.  Rom.  vi.  3-4. 

Eurico  Ujitjj  ^itn  in  baptism,  tofjcrc* 
in  al^o  pc  arc  ri#cn  toit^  ^i 
tljc  faitlj  of  tl)c  operation  of  ^3oo, 
Ijatf)  rai^co  Ipim  from  tt)c  ocao. 

Cf/.  ii.  12. 

* 


IV. 
BAPTISM  INTO  CHRIST. 

(EAD  with  Christ,  and  risen  with 
Christ !  How  perfectly  has  the  Spirit 
^3-  enshrined  this  twofold  doctrine  for 
us  in  the  initial  ordinance  of  the  gospel ! 
Baptism  is  at  once  the  rite  in  which  the  be- 
liever gives  token  of  his  union  with  Jesus  in 
his  death  and  resurrection,  and  in  which  he 
receives  in  germ"  all  those  deep  kindred  trtiths 
which  are  to  unfold  with  his  daily  growth  in 
faith  and  knowledge  ;  the  sacrament  which 
the  Church  holds  as  a  perpetual  trust  from 
her  ascended  Lord,  and  which  holds  for  the 
Church  in  perpetual  preservation  this  doc- 
trine in  which  her  life  is  bound  up. 

If  we  have  assented  then  to  what  has  been 
said  in  the  foregoing  chapters,  and  if  we  have 
"  obeyed  from  the  heart  that  fortn  l  of  doc- 
trine "  to  which  we  are  thus  committed,  we 
i  Note  H. 


7O  IN  CHRIST. 

shall  have  now  no  hesitating  answer  for  the 
question  of  the  Apostle,  "  Know  ye  not  that 
so  many  of  us  as  were  baptized  into  Jesus 
Christ,  were  baptized  into  his  death  ?  "  Nor 
having  assented  to  this  shall  we  be  uncertain 
as  to  his  conclusion,  "  Therefore  we  were  bur- 
ied1 with  Him  by  baptism  into  death,  that  like 
as  CJirist  was  raised  tip  from  the  dead  by  the 
glory  of  the  Father,  even  so  we  also  should 
walk  in  newness  of  life."  2 

And  so  we  look  back  to  that  solemn  mo- 
ment when,  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  we 
were  immersed  beneath  the  water,  and  then 
raised  again  from  the  parted  wave,  and  we  see 
in  the  act  the  divine  credential  which  our 
Lord  gave  to  our  consenting  faith  of  our 
union  with  Him  in  his  dying  and  rising  ;  or  in 
the  expressive  phrase  of  Chrysostom,  "  the 
sign  and  pledge  of  our  descent  with  Him 
into  the  state  of  the  dead,  and  of  our  return 
thence." 

How  far  we  must  ever  keep  from  ascribing 
any  saving  efficacy  to  the  water,  or  to  the 
ritual  act  of  baptism,  will  appear  when  we 
consider  how  wonderfully  framed  the  ordi- 
nance is  for  disclaiming  all  merit  for  the  be- 

1  Note  I.  2  Rom.  vi.  3,  4. 


IN  CHRIST.  71 

liever's  obedience,  in  the  very  act  of  helping 
him  to  render  that  obedience.  For  not  only 
is  here  a  sign  which  is  empty  and  worthless, 
without  the  accompanying  faith,  but  one 
which  shows  how  empty  that  faith  is  without 
its  object,  Christ  crucified  and  risen.  Re- 
pentance, belief,  obedience,  what  are  these 
apart  from  the  Redeemer,  and  except  as 
methods  of  appropriating  his  redemption  ? 
God  reads  them,  and  will  have  us  express 
them  in  the  terms  of  the  Saviour's  atone- 
ment. And  therefore  side  by  side  with  the 
requirement  of  faith  He  has  placed  that  of 
baptism,  giving  us  thus  the  synonym  of 
death  and  resurrection  as  the  language  in 
which  we  must  utter  our  confession  of  faith, 
that  we  may  never  forget  how  we  were  re- 
deemed. 

Thus  baptism  is  the  divinely  appointed 
method  of  translating  our  obedience  and  faith 
into  the  phraseology  of  our  Lord's  death  and 
resurrection.  By  it  the  disciple  says  to  God, 
not,  "  I  have  believed  and  obeyed  the  gospel, 
therefore  accept  me  ; "  but  rather,  "  //  is 
Christ  tJtat  died,  yea  rather  tJiat  is  risen 
again" J  and  I  hereby  declare  my  conformity 

1  Rom.  viii.  34. 


72  IN  CHRIST. 

to  his  death,  and  my  fellowship  with  his  res- 
urrection. 

Noting  more  minutely  the  features  of  this 
apostolic  ordinance,  we  shall  see  how  it  an- 
swers in  every  particular  to  the  doctrine  un- 
folded in  previous  chapters. 

Here  is  first  the  burial,  which  confirms  and 
seals  our  crucifixion  in  Christ.  The  Spirit 
declares  "  TJie  body  is  dead  because  of  sin"  * 
and  the  water  opens  now  its  mystic  tomb 
to  ratify  that  verdict.  And  how,  as  for  a 
moment  the  prostrate  form  of  the  disciple 
disappears  beneath  the  wave,  is  the  whole 
solemn  story  of  our  death  in  Christ  silently 
rehearsed  !  Here  is  no  sparing  or  reprieving 
of  our  guilty  nature.  The  inexorable  purpose 
for  which  "our  old  man  was  crucified  with 
Him"  is  proclaimed  without  equivocation, 
"  that  the  body  of  sin  might  be  destroyed" 
Judaism,  that  trial  of  man  in  the  flesh,  that 
system  for  his  cleansing  in  his  carnal  state, 
had  as  its  ordinance,  circumcision,  the  typical 
rite  of  the  purification  of  the  fiesh.  But 
Christianity,  starting  upon  the  axioms  that 
"  The  carnal  mind  is  enmity  against  God,"  and 
that  "  They  that  are  in  the  flesh  cannot  please 
God," z  has  a  far  different  ordinance,  even 

1  Rom.  viii.  IO.  2  Rom.  viii.  7,  8. 


IN  CHRIST.  73 

baptism,  the  typical  rite  of  the  burial  of  the 
flesh,  in  order  to  a  better  resurrection.  Cir- 
cumcision is  "  the  putting  away  of  the  filth  of 
the  flesh  ;  "  *  baptism  is  "  the  putting  off  of 
the  body  of  the  sins  of  the  flesh."  a  Therefore 
by  this  confession  do  we  not  only,  as  Edward 
Irving  expresses  it,  "  sign  the  death-warrant 
of  our  natural  man  which  has  been  issued 
from  the  court  of  heaven,"  but  we  sign  it  lit- 
erally with  the  "sign  of  the  cross;"  the 
similitude  of  our  Lord's  death  being  the  ap- 
pointed and  permanent  vehicle  of  this  con- 
fession, that  so  we  may  be  constantly  re- 
minded not  only  that  we  must  die  to  sin  in 
order  to  live  to  God,  but  except  we  die  with 
Him  we  cannot  live  with  Him. 

And  can  those  who  realize  the  greatness  of 
those  two  dangers  which  are  always  threat- 
ening the  Church,  namely,  a  bloodless  moral- 
ism  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  spiritless  ceremo- 
nialism on  the  other,  be  too  grateful  for  the 
fonn  of  this  ordinance  which  the  Spirit  has 
thus  fixed  ?  Substitute,  as  has  been  done, 
the  sprinkling  or  pouring  of  water  upon  the 
person,  for  burial  in  the  water ;  thus  let 
the  cleansing  only  of  the  soul  be  signified 

*l  Pet.  iii.  21.  *Col.  ii.  II. 


74  IN  CHRIST. 

in  the  rite,  with  no  symbolic  designation 
of  the  method  of  that  cleansing,  death  in 
Christ.  It  is  easy  for  the  moralist  now  to 
use  the  ordinance  without  ever  having  his 
mind  turned  to  the  sacrifice  of  Calvary.  Aye, 
desiring  not  to  see  that  sacrifice  which  means 
death  to  the  carnal  man,  he  comes  readily  to 
view  the  rite  as  a  kind  of  Christian  circum- 
cision, marking  the  sanctifying  of  human  na- 
ture, and  bringing  that  into  covenant  with 
God.  •  And  so,  "  as  many  as  desire  to  make  a 
fair  show  in  the  flesh"  will  readily  be  con- 
strained to  adopt  it,  when  both  their  heart  and 
their  flesh  would  cry  out  against  that  baptism 
into  Christ's  death  which  marks  the  cruci- 
fying and  putting  off  of  the  old  man.  And 
on  the  other  hand  how  easily  the  idea  of  mys- 
tical efficacy  becomes  attached  to  the  element 
of  water,  unless  the  form  of  its  use  be  such  as 
to  carry  the  thought  immediately  and  cer- 
tainly to  Christ  crucified  and  dead.  How 
vitally  important  then  that  "  form  of  doc- 
trine "  prescribed  by  the  Scriptures,  namely, 
the  sacramental  burial,  which,  while  it  so  dis- 
tinctly signifies  our  union  with  Him  "  who 
came  by  water,"  as  distinctly  adds  the  saving 
clause,  "  not  by  water  only,  but  by  water  and 
Wood." 


IN  CHRIST.  75 

As  we  have  intimated  already,  such  a  seal 
of  doom  to  the  natural  man  will  not  be  likely 
to  find  much  favor  in  this  world.  Why  should 
it  ?  It  is  the  cross  translated  into  symbol, 
and  the  cross  gets  little  human  approbation. 
The  old  offense  and  ignominy  lurk  even  in  its 
shadow.  Doubtless  many  a  true  believer  has 
turned  back  to  circumcision  from  finding  how 
much  deeper  the  gospel  cuts  than  the  law  ; 
and  doubtless  miny  another,  who  has  gone 
down  with  Christ  into  the  mystic  grave, 
would  have  started  back  affrighted  had  he 
realized  all  that  he  was  showing  forth. 

But  sorrow  can  have  no  place  at  this  tomb 
if  we  stop  to  consider  how  much  is  put  off  in 
this  putting  off  of  our  old  man  ;  how  the  sin 
that  roots  itself  in  that  nature,  the  curse  that 
clings  to  that  nature,  and  the  condemnation 
that  rests  upon  that  nature,  are  all  swallowed 
up  in  the  sepulchre  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
cross  condemns  and  brings  death  indeed,  but 
just  beyond  is  the  tomb  where  the  condem- 
nation is  buried,  and  the  death  is  swallowed 
up  in  victory.  "  So  I  saw  in  ray  dream,"  says 
Bunyan,  "  that  just  as  Christian  came  up  with 
the  cross,  his  burden  loosed  from  off  his 
shoulders  and  fell  from  off  his  back,  and  be- 


76  IN  CHRIST. 

gan  to  tumble,  and  so  continued  to  do  till  it 
came  to  the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre,  when  it 
fell  in,  and  I  saw  it  no  more"  And  does  not 
this  word,  "  I  saw  it  no  more,"  answer  the. 
deepest  note  in  the  longing  and  groaning  of 
our  sin-burdened  humanity  ?  That  Christian 
cry,  "  Who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 
this  death  ? "  and  that  heathen  cry  embodied 
in  the  fable  of  Lethe,  whose  waters  of  forget- 
fulness  the  dead  are  ever  thirsting  to  drink 
that  they  may  enter  into  rest,  are  strangely 
akin  in  this,  —  that  it  is  the  pain  of  an  ach- 
ing conscience,  the  sighing  for  ease  from  the 
sting  of  sin,  that  is  told  alike  in  each.  And 
where  have  these  cries  been  answered  but  in 
those  sacramental  waters,  which  in  a  figure 
are  at  once  the  grave  where  the  body  of  sin  is 
buried,  and  the  river  of  forgetfulness  where 
bygone  guilt  is  overwhelmed,  and  its  memory 
swallowed  up  ?  And  when  was  ever  God's 
ancient  promise,  "Their  sins  and  their  iniqui- 
ties I  will  remember  no  more,"  written  in  so 
large  letters  as  here  ?  Not  surely  in  that  law 
that  "  stood  in  divers  washings- ;  " }  for  in  that 
there  was  "  a  remembrance  again  made  of 
sins  every  year."  2  Not  in  that  pseudo-gos- 
*  Heb.  ix.  10.  2  Heb.  x.  3. 


IN  CHRIST.  77 

pel  which  places  our  hope  in  some  cleansing 
or  betterment  of  human  nature ;  for  in  that, 
hope  dies,  and  bitter  memories  awake  with 
every  fresh  reviving  of  the  evil  principle. 
But  here  is  found  an  ordinance  that  says  to 
the  believer  "  no  condemnation,"  and  "  no 
more  conscience  of  sins." 

Say  not  then  with  a  Romish  Father,1  that 
"  The  true  penitent  never  forgives  himself" 
Say  rather  that  he  is  one  who  has  learned  to 
see  in  the  grave  of  his  Lord  the  burial  of  all 
his  sins,  with  their  burning  remembrances, 
their  bitter  accusations,  and  their  stinging  re- 
proaches, and  so,  entering  into  God's  thought 
concerning  him,  has  learned  to  forgive  him- 
self in  God's  forgiveness  of  him.  "  Blessed 
is  he  whose  transgression  is  forgiven,  whose 
sin  is  covered".  "  Blessed  is  the  man  to  whom 
the  Lord  imputeth  not  iniquity." 

And  if  there  is  a  signing  of  the  death-war- 
rant of  the  natural  man  in  this  rite,  there  is 
just  as  clearly  the  making  over  of  a  quit- 
claim upon  him  by  a  satisfied  law.  For  when 
did  the  law  ever  pursue  a  culprit  into  his 
grave  ?  To  have  died  with  Christ  is  to  have 
died  to  the  law.2  No  avenger  of  blood  can 

1  J.  H.  Newman  *  Rom.  viL  4 


78  Iff  CHRIST. 

pursue  his  victim  within  the  guarded  pre- 
cincts of  this  city  of  refuge,  the  sepulchre  of 
Jesus.  And  to  the  fact  of  the  believer's  hav- 
ing entered  here,  the  water  is  a  perpetual  wit- 
ness. "  I  buried  him  with  Christ,"  it  says. 
"  I  rolled  my  wave  like  a  stone  against  the 
door  of  his  sepulchre.  I  set  the  seal  of  the 
new  covenant  inscribed  with  the  triune  name 
upon  his  tomb."  And  so  every  taunt  of  a 
suspicious  conscience,  and  every  rising  terror 
of  a  broken  commandment,  is  silenced. 

If  now  it  seems  to  any  believer  that  he  can 
afford  to  lose  the  letter  of  this  commandment 
because  forsooth  "  the  letter  killeth,"  it  may 
appear  upon  deeper  reflection  that  this  is  just 
the  reason  why  he  needs  it.  Confidence  in 
the  flesh,  and  bondage  to  the  law,  are  enemies 
that  we  may  rejoice  to  have  killed  ;  and  if 
the  letter  of  baptism  can  show  them  to  our 
faith  as  cut  off  and  utterly  destroyed  in  the 
grave  of  Christ,  it  has  done  a  blessed  work 
for  us.  Oh,  would  that  all  seekers  after  peace 
might  discover  this  —  that  there  can  be  no 
entrance  into  "  the  power  of  Christ's  resur- 
rection," except  through  conformity  to  his 
death.  Would  that  the  tomb  of  Jesus  might 
be  seen  to  be  as  it  is,  the  only  shelter  from 


IN  CHRIST.  79 

the  law,  the  only  stronghold  from  the  perse- 
cutions of  conscience.  Then,  the  preciousness 
of  the  doctrine  being  discovered,  the  pre- 
ciousness of  the  symbol  would  be  felt.  And 
how  would  they  who  have  learned  to  say  "  I 
am  crucified  with  Christ,"  also 

"  Joy  to  undergo 

This  shadow  of  his  cross  sublime, 
This  remnant  of  his  woe." 

But  the  buried  form  is  raised  up  again  from 
the  water  in  the  likeness  of  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion. It  should  remain  submerged,  if  Christ 
be  not  risen.  As  it  is,  the  momentary  disap- 
pearance from  sight,  and  the  brief  suspension 
of  the  breath,  vividly  suggests  that  fearful 
doom  which  were  ours  in  such  a  case.  But 
no  sooner  is  the  "  buried  with  Him  in  bap- 
tism "  spoken,  than  the  "  Now  is  Christ  risen 
from  the  dead"  is  answered  and  echoed  back 
by  the  joyful  announcement,  "  wherein  also 
ye  are  risen  with  Him  through  the  faith  of 
the  operation  of  God  which  hath  raised  Him 
from  the  dead'  *  Blessed  is  he  who,  now 
looking  into  the  grave  where  he  was  buried 
with  Christ,  sees  what  God  sees,  what  the 
angels  see,  the  winding  sheet  of  Adam's 
1  Col.  ii.  12. 


8O  IN  CHRIST. 

curse  put  off  from  him  and  folded  up  forever, 
and  the  linen  clothes  of  a  legal  righteousness 
laid  by  themselves.  And  thrice  blessed  is  he 
who  hears  concerning  himself  the  glad  an- 
nouncement, "  He  is  not  here,  but  is  risen," 
and  so  is  enabled  to  go  forth  in  the  joy  of 
the  resurrection,  to  "  walk  in  newness  of  life." 
And  this  is  what  the  Spirit  by  the  water  as 
well  as  by  the  word  would  certify  to  us,  —  our 
standing  in  union  with  our  risen.  Head  be- 
yond the  executed  sentence  of  an  injured  law, 
our  complete  security  in  Him,  and  our  right 
and  duty  to  rejoice  evermore  in  this  grace. 

The  value  of  the  ordinances  is  in  their 
power  of  bringing  truth  within  the  apprehen- 
sion of  all  our  senses,  physical  and  spiritual. 
Thus  do  they  not  only  intensify  our  experi- 
ence of  doctrine,  but  they  serve  to  put  it 
beyond  further  question,  as  that  "  which  we 
have  heard,  which  we  have  seen  with  our 
eyes,  which  our  hands  have  handled  of  the 
Word  of  Life." 1 

How  vividly  in  the  momentary  chill  and 
darkness  of  the  grave  of  baptism  do  we  taste 
his  death  who  suffered  for  us  all !  And  in  the 
exultant  uprising,  the  quick  recovery  of  the 

1  I  John  i.  I. 


IN  CHRIST.  8l 

bated  breath  that  follows,  how  fully  do  we 
seem  to  enter  into  the  joyful  experience  of 
his  quickening  !  So  closely  does  the  sym- 
bol thus  press  upon  the  reality,  that  Paul  in 
that  bold  "  Know  ye  not," l  seems  to  appeal 
to  the  believer's  baptism  as  the  experience  of 
his  Lord's  death  and  resurrection,  and  as 
making  it  thus  a  subject  of  memory  as  well 
as  of  faith. 

So  by  this  memorial  let  the  Christian  know 
and  remember  that  he  has  been  quickened 
with  Christ ;  that  henceforth  his  place  is  on 
resurrection  ground,  and  he  can  fix  it  nowhere 
else  without  dishonoring  his  Lord.  If,  for- 
getting that  his  life  is  hid  in  the  risen  Christ, 
he  is  tempted  to  find  it  in  Adam,  let  him  hear 
all  the  floods  of  baptism  lifting  up  their  voice 
in  rebuke,  saying,  "  Why  seek  ye  the  living 
among  the  dead  ? "  "  Are  ye  so  foolish,  hav- 
ing begun  in  the  Spirit,  are  ye  now  made 
perfect  in  the  flesh  ? "  2  If,  unmindful  of  his 
accomplished  justification  by  faith,  he  yet 
lingers  under  the  law,  let  him  hear  the  bridal 
vow,  which  in  baptism  sealed  him  to  the  Lord 
Jesus,  condemning  him,  "  Ye  are  become  dead 
to  the  law  by  the  body  of  Christ,  that  yt 

1  Rom.  vi.  3.  •  Gal.  iii.  2. 

6 


82  IN  CHRIST. 

should  be  married  to  another,  even  to  Him 
who  is  raised  from  the  dead,  that  ye  should 
bring  forth  fruit  unto  God."  Every  return  to 
the  law  now  as  a  ground  of  justification,  is 
treachery  and  infidelity  to  the  Bridegroom  of 
the  Church ;  and  any  righteousness  or  trust 
brought  forth  from  it,  is  only  the  fruit  of  a 
criminal  and  forbidden  relationship. 

But  above  all  must  this  memory  serve  as  a 
most  tender  and  pathetic  plea  for  a  holy  walk. 
Sin  now  takes  on  added  guilt,  that  of  crimi- 
nal inconstancy.  Its  stain  is  of  a  darker  hue, 
falling  on  that  resurrection  mantle.  Its  of- 
fense is  a  "  crucifying  of  the  Son  of  God  afresh 
and  putting  Him  to  an  open  shame."  And 
so  no  possible  dissuasion  from  sin  can  be  so 
strong  as  this.  "  Neither  yield  ye  your  mem- 
bers as  instruments  of  unrighteousness  unto 
sin  ;  but  yield  yourselves  unto  God  as  those 
that  are  alive  from  the  dead,  and  your  mem- 
bers as  instruments  of  righteousness  unto 
God."  ! 

If  baptism  is  for  our  "  assurance  of  faith," 
as  the  sign  that  we  are  risen  with  Christ 
spiritually,  it  is  equally  for  our  "  assurance  of 
hope,"  as  the  prophecy  that  we  shall  rise 

1  Rom.  vi   13. 


IN  CHRIST.  83 

bodily  at  the  last  day.1  Has  not  a  strange 
apathy  crept  over  the  Church  respecting  this 
her  most  glorious  hope  ?  From  Christ,  who 
spoke  that  first  word  of  comfort  to  the  be- 
reaved, "  Thy  brother  shall  rise  again,"  to  the 
Apostle  who  consoled  the  Thessalonian  Chris- 
tians with  that  confident  "  If  we  believe  that 
Jesus  died  and  rose  again,  even  so  them  also 

1  This  truth  is  drawn  out  with  great  justness  and  force  in 
the  following  words  of  Dean  Goulburn :  "  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  baptism,  when  administered  in  the  primitive  and 
most  correct  form,  is  a  divinely  constituted  emblem  of  bod- 
ily resurrection.  And  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  form  of 
administration  unavoidably  (if  it  be  unavoidably)  adopted  in 
cold  climates  should  utterly  obscure  the  emblematic  sig- 
nificance of  the  rite,  and  render  unintelligible  to  all  but 
the  educated,  the  Apostle's  association  of  burial  and  resur- 
rection with  the  ordinance.  Were  immersion,  which  is  the 
rule  of  our  Church  in  cases  where  it  may  be  had  without 
hazard  to  the  health,  universally  practiced,  this  association 
of  two  at  present  heterogeneous  ideas  would  become  intelli- 
gible to  the  humblest.  The  water,  closing  over  the  entire 
person,  would  then  preach  of  the  grave  which  yawns  for 
every  child  of  Adam,  and  which  one  day  will  engulf  us  all 
in  its  drear  abyss.  But  that  abyss  will  be  the  womb  and 
seed  plot  of  a  new  life.  Animation  having  been  for  one  in- 
stant suspended  beneath  the  water,  a  type  this  of  the  inter- 
ruption of  man's  energies  by  death,  the  body  is  lifted  up 
ag:un  into  the  air  by  way  of  expressing  emblematically  the 
new  birth  of  resurrection."  —  Bampton  Lectures,  1850.  Ox- 
ford edition,  p.  18. 


84  Iff  CHRIST. 

which  sleep  in  Jesus  will  God  bring  with 
Him,"  1  this  was  the  one  blessed  assurance 
with  which  primitive  Christianity  sought  to 
dissipate  the  gloom  of  death.  We  dwell  so 
much  on  the  present  joy  of  our  dead  who 
have  gone  to  Christ,  that  we  forget  the  joy 
that  yet  remains  when  God  shall  bring  them 
with  Him.  But  it  is  then  only  that  death 
will  be  robbed  of  its  sting  and  the  grave  of 
its  victory.  It  is  the  resurrection  that  gives 
us  back  our  beloved,  looking  and  speaking  as 
they  were  wont ;  that  gives  us  back  our  bod- 
ies parted  from  us  awhile,  but  endeared  to 
us  by  the  very  sorrows  we  have  borne  in 
them  ;  and  that  restores  us  wholly  to  the  lost 
image  of  God,  in  which  we  were  crea.ted,  by 
making  us  to  awake  in  the  likeness  of  Christ, 
new  created.  Hence  the  eagerness  of  that 
waiting  for  the  redemption  of  the  body  in 
which  the  whole  creation  shares. 

As  our  whole  nature,  body,  soul,  and  spirit, 
died  in  Adam,  so  must  our  whole  nature, 
body,  soul,  and  spirit,  be  made  alive  in  Christ 
before  our  blessedness  can  be  complete. 
And  if  we  are  in  the  Lord,  our  physical  res- 
titution is  assured  to  us  with  equal  certainty 

1 1  Thess.  iv.  14, 


IN  CHRIST.  85 

* 

with  our  spiritual.  For  not  only  is  it  true 
that  "  he  that  is  joined  to  the  Lord  is  one 
spirit"  but  equally  that  we  are  members  of 
his  body,  of  his  flesh,  and  of  his  bones." 
But  as  the  Head  is,  so  must  be  the  members. 
And  they  who,  once  unclothed  by  sin,  have 
now  put  on  Christ  by  baptism,  have  thereby, 
according  to  St.  Bernard's  fine  saying,  "  had 
two  garments  bestowed  upon  them  :  the  one, 
the  righteousness  of  Christ,  with  which  they 
are  already  clothed  in  the  joy  and  peace  of 
redeemed  souls  ;  and  the  other,  the  immor- 
tality of  Christ,  with  which  they  are  yet  to  be 
clad  in  the  glory  and  incorruptibility  of  re- 
deemed bodies." 

That  the  hope  of  such  a  consummation 
may  not  die  out  of  the  Church  —  as,  alas  ! 
what  hope  may  not  when  her  heart  has 
turned  away  from  her  Lord,  and  her  eyes 
from  watching  for  his  appearing  —  the  Spirit 
has  not  only  reiterated  it  in  scores  of  texts, 
but  enshrined  it  in  this  rite  as  in  "a  statuary 
of  truth  which  may  endure  though  the  pictur- 
ing and  writing  of  it  should  be  effaced." 

And  let  it  be  noted  that  of  all  the  types 
that  have  been  employed  to  bring  this  hope 
vividly  to  the  Christian  mind,  not  one  ex- 


86  IN  CHRIST. 

cepting  baptism  is  adequate  to  the  reality. 
Of  a  general  resurrection  which  the  Scrip- 
tures foretell,  we  see  tokens  and  similitudes 
all  about  us  in  nature,  —  in  the  flower,  spring- 
ing up  from  the  seed  which  has  fallen  into 
the  earth  and  died  ;  in  the  morning,  opening 
the  vast  grave  of  night,  and  summoning  a 
sleeping  world  to  rise  and  meet  the  sun  "  as 
he  cometh  forth  as  a  bridegroom  from  his 
chamber ; "  in  the  springtide,  calling  the 
earth  from  the  tomb  of  winter,  loosing  her 
shroud  of  snow,  and  clothing  her  with  re- 
newed life  and  beauty  ;  in  all  these  there  are 
joyful  parables  and  pledges  of  a  resurrection. 
But  the  flower  fades  and  dies,  the  morning 
sinks  again  into  the  embrace  of  night,  and 
the  earth  lies  down  once  more  in  the  sepul- 
chre of  winter ;  and  so,  alas  !  these  symbols 
only  mock  the  hope  they  have  kindled  in  the 
soul.  But  while  we  are  asking  sorrowfully, 
"  Is  there  no  resurrection  that  is  exempt  from 
death  ? "  we  turn  to  this  ordinance  of  Chris- 
tianity. "  Risen  with  Christ,"  it  says  ;  and 
then  adding,  "  knowing  that  Christ  being 
raised  from  the  dead  dieth  no  more,  death 
hath  no  more  dominion  over  him" 1  bids  us 

1  Rom.  vi.  9. 


IN  CHRIST.  87 

likewise  reckon  ourselves  to  be  alive  with 
Him  in  the  same  resurrection.  Thus  this 
symbcl  of  the  gospel  carries  a  promise  and  a 
benediction  which  are  committed  to  no  sym- 
bol of  nature.  "  Blessed  and  holy  is  he  that 
hath  part  in  the  first  resurrection  ;  on  such 
the  second  death  Jiath  no  power" 1 

To  such  salutary  uses,  and  for  the  declara- 
tion of  such  blessed  hopes,  was  the  ordinance 
of  baptism  appointed.  It  holds  conspicu- 
ously before  our  minds  the  truths  that  are 
most  vital  to  our  assurance  and  comfort  in 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  To  each  believer,  on 
his  profession  of  faith,  and  to  the  whole 
church  beholding,  it  presents  a  sensible  im- 
age of  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus  and  his 
rising  again,  and  thus  seeks  to  form  the 
Christian  heart  and  life  according  to  the  pat- 
tern received  from  God. 

Were  it  only  a  form  of  ecclesiastical  regis- 
tration, it  might  perhaps  be  counted  among 
the  non-essentials  of  Christianity.  But  as  the 
divine  emblem  through  which  faith  appre- 
hends our  union  with  the  dead  and  risen  Re- 
deemer, and  by  which  the  Spirit  solemnly  re- 
minds us  of  our  engagement  to  die  daily  to 
1  Rev.  xx.  6. 


88  IN  CHRIST. 

sin  in  the  mortifying  of  all  unholy  passions 
and  desires,  and  to  walk  in  newness  of  life  by 
abiding  in  Christ,  how  shall  we  not  most  ten- 
derly urge  it  upon  all  who  love  our  blessed 
Lord  ?  Rather,  how  shall  we  not  ourselves 
most  earnestly  seek  to  preserve  its  integrity 
and  illustrate  its  beauty  by  reflecting  it  in  a 
consecrated  and  self-denying  life  ?  For  we 
cannot  forget  that  it  is  an  unsanctified  life 
that  constitutes  the  worst  perversion  of  this 
rite.  The  type  may  be  perfect ;  but  if  the 
impress  with  which  it  was  meant  to  stamp  a 
life  is  blurred  with  inconsistencies  and  dis- 
torted by  habitual  sin,  its  perfection  will  not 
appear.  For  the  seal  is  judged  by  its  signa- 
ture. 

"  Grant,  O  Lord,  that  as  we  are  baptized 
into  the  death  of  thy  blessed  Son  our  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ,  so  by  continual  mortifying  of 
our  corrupt  affections,  we  may  be  buried  with 
Him  ;  and  that  through  the  grave  and  gate  of 
death  we  may  pass  to  our  joyful  resurrection, 
for  his  merits  who  died  and  was  buried  and 
rose  again  for  us,  thy  Son  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  Amen." 


V.     LIFE    IN   CHRIST. 


€tjereforc  if  anp  man  Be  in  Cjjritft, 
fje  itf  a  ncto  creature.  2  GV.  v.  17. 


31  Me,  pet  not  %  but  <€f)ri£t  i 
in  me  ;  ano  tljc  life  toJuct)  S!  noto  litie  in 
tljc  flc^t)  3f  li^e  &p  tjjc  faitjj  of  tlje 
of  <iBob,  lul)o  iotocti  me  anfc  ga\3 
for  me.  Gai.  \\.  20. 


§our  life  \$  Ijiti  toitj  C&ri^t  in 
CJri^t,  tofto  i#  our  life, 
appear,  tl)cn  *iljaU  pe  al^o  appear  Uutlj 
in  glorp.  coi.  m.  3,  4- 

* 


V. 

LIFE  IN    CHRIST. 

[ITH  what  life  do  they  come  forth 
from  baptism,  who  have  put  on 
Christ  ?  Even  with  that  twofold  life 
of  which  baptism  is  the  seal  and  the  fore- 
shadowing,—  the  crucified  life  of  the  first 
Adam,  and  the  risen  life  of  the  second  Adam. 

In  a  deeper  sense  than  he  meant  it,  is  that 
striking  utterance  of  Lacordaire  true,  —  "  The 
Church  is  born  crucified"  For  not  only  as 
born  of  the  Spirit  has  she  been  brought  into 
fellowship  with  the  sufferings  of  Christ ;  but 
as  born  of  water  she  has  been  stamped  with 
the  cross  of  Christ,  the  birth-mark  of  her  re- 
demption, to  be  worn  till  death.  And  being 
"  begotten  again  unto  a  lively  hope  by  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead," 
she  has  also  the  new  and  glorified  life  of  her 
Lord. 

The  prescribed  course  of  Christian  growth 


92  IN  CHRIST. 

and  development  then  is  exactly  according  to 
that  type  of  doctrine  to  which  we  have  been 
committed  in  baptism.  "  Ye  are  dead" *  is 
the  doctrinal  statement  of  the  believer's  sta- 
tus before  the  law.  "  Mortify  therefore  your 
members  which  are  upon  the  earth"  is  the 
practical  inference  to  be  worked  out  in  holy 
living.  " Ye  are  risen  with  Christ"  1  is  the 
other  side  of  the  same  doctrinal  statement. 
"  Seek  those  things  which  are  above"  is  the 
corresponding  exhortation  to  practical  holi- 
ness. And  so  we  see  the  truth  of  the  axiom 
of  a  former  chapter,  that  Christian  experience 
is  the  making  real  in  ourselves  what  is  al- 
ready true  for  us  in  Christ. 

Of  Jesus  we  might  almost  say  that  He 
never  wholly  ceases  to  be  anything  that  He 
has  once  been ;  there  is  such  an  unchanging 
permanency  and  vitality  in  every  event  of  his 
redemption.  Of  the  believer  who  is  in  Him, 
this  is  certainly  true.  He  is  one  that  not 
only  has  died  with  Christ,  but  one  who  in 
that  very  fact  is  bound  to  "  die  daily  "  with 
Him  so  long  as  he  is  in  the  flesh.  He  is  one 
who  not  only  has  been  made  a  "new  crea- 
ture "  in  Christ,  but  one  whose  inward  man  is 
1  Col.  ill  I,  6. 


IN  CHRIST.  93 

'renewed  day  by  day."  And  so  the  cross 
and  the  resurrection  extend  their  influence 
and  exert  their  power  over  the  Christian's 
entire  earthly  history. 

Of  the  twofold  life  in  which  this  twofold 
experience  is  carried  on,  let  us  consider  a 
moment. 

We  cannot  regard  it  as  a  double  phase  of 
one  and  the  same  life,  but  rather  as  the  man- 
ifestation of  two  distinct  natures,  one  of 
which  we  derive  from  Adam,  and  the  other 
from  Christ :  natures  which  mingle  and  in- 
terpenetrate indeed  in  the  same  soul,  as  air 
and  moisture  occupy  the  same  space  in  the 
sky,  but  between  which  there  can  be  no  unity 
of  life.  "  That  which  is  born  of  tli£  flesh  is 
flesh."  The  degenerate  seed  can  only  repro- 
duce itself.  It  holds  no  germs  or  possibili- 
ties of  a  divine  life.  "  Tltat  which  is  born  of 
the  Spirit  is  spirit"  The  seed  of  God  can 
unfold  only  in  the  life  of  God,  and  through 
all  its  endless  reproductions,  it  is  still  "  tlu 
incorruptible  seed."  So  that  while  in  the 
Scriptures  we  have  several  distinct  enumera- 
tions of  the  fruits  of  the  flesh  and  the  fruits 
of  the  Spirit,  we  never  find  the  mention  of 
such  an  anomaly  as  a  natural  grace  or  a  spir- 


94  W  CHRIST. 

itual  imperfection,  the  offspring  of  the  two  in 
their  amalgamation.  Aye,  more.  Not  only 
is  there  no  possible  community  of  life  be- 
tween these  two,  but  an  irreconcilable  en- 
mity. "  For  the  flesh  lusteth  against  the 
spirit,  and  the  spirit  against  the  flesh,  and 
these  are  contrary  the  one  to  the  other."  l 

Here,  in  this  awakened  antagonism  of 
grace  and  nature,  is  the  sword  which  Christ's 
coming  brings  to  every  soul,  —  a  sword  which, 
like  that  of  the  old  crusader,  proves  upon  in- 
spection to  be  only  the  cross  changed  from  a 
symbol  of  faith  into  a  weapon  of  conquest, 
and  which  we  must  take  up  daily  in  following 
Christ.  For  the  old  nature,  though  judged 
and  condemned  and  deposed  in  the  death  of 
Christ,  is  forever  revolting  against  its  sen- 
tence, and  struggling  to  regain  its  lost  su- 
premacy. And  the  new  man  from  above,  is 
set  to  no  less  a  task  than  his  total  overthrow 
and  reduction. 

In  the  seventh  of  Romans  we  see  the  bat- 
tle in  progress  between  these  two  ;  we  watch 
the  advance  and  retreat  of  the  forces  of  each. 
Now  we  hear  the  groan  of  the  wounded,  "  O, 
wretched  man  that  I  am  ; "  and  now,  clear 

1  GaL  v.  17. 


IN  CHRIST.  95 

and  strong  above  the  conflict,  we  catch  the 
shout  of  assured  victory,  —  "I  thank  God 
through  Jesus  Christ."  But  it  is  a  victory 
yet  delayed.  For  the  battle  closes  with  both 
antagonists  still  alive  and  hostile.  "  So  with 
my  mind  I  myself  serve  the  law  of  God,  but 
with  the  flesh  the  law  of  sin." 

And  yet,  though  there  can  be  no  truce  to 
this  conflict  this  side  the  grave,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  as  to  its  ultimate  issue.  "  Old 
Adam  is  too  strong  for  young  Melancthon," 
said  the  Reformer.  But  he  is  not  too  strong 
for  Christ,  and  it  is  Christ  that  is  in  us,  and 
we  in  Him.  The  very  defeats  of  the  believer 
therefore  are  victories,  since,  driven  back 
from  the  outposts  of  self,  a  retreat  into  Christ 
becomes  inevitable.  Not  as  those  who  go  to 
this  warfare  at  their  own  charges,  and  carry 
it  on  from  their  own  resources,  does  he  con- 
tend. That  is  but  Adam  against  Adam  ;  the 
natural  man  attempting  to  conquer  himself ; 
a  conquest  which  must  always  end  in  failure. 
He  who  is  in  Christ  fights  from  victory  in 
his  very  attempt  to  fight  for  victory.  And 
therefore  he  is  never  so  strong  as  when,  from 
some  fierce  sortie  upon  the  flesh,  he  retires 
into  his  fortress,  confessing  with  renewed 


96  IN  CHRIST. 

humility  that  the  Lord  is  his  refuge  and  his 
strength. 

If  the  life  of  the  believer  were  a  unit,  the 
natural  man  improved  merely,  the  old  Adam 
renewed  and  put  in  better  dress,  would  there 
not  be  something  more  than  a  paradox,  — 
would  there  not  be  a  hopeless  contradiction 
in  those  words  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  When 
I  am  weak  then  am  I  strong  "  ?  One  cannot 
even  by  a  figure  be  in  two  opposite  condi- 
tions at  the  same  time.  And  within  the 
same  sphere  and  in  the  same  subject  it  is 
hardly  possible  that  strength  should  find  its 
highest  perfection  in  weakness.  But  this 
contradiction  vanishes  when  we  read  the 
words  in  the  light  of  that  true  expression  of 
the  believer's  nature,  —  "7  live,  yet  not  7,  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me"  There  are  two  Fs  now, 
if  we  may  say  so  ;  the  positive  and  the  nega- 
tive, —  the  one  from  earth,  and  the  other  from 
heaven.  The  first  has  his  name  as  well  as 
his  nature,  from  the  Head  of  the  race,  man, 
one  in  Adam  ;  the  second  derives  both  his 
name  and  his  nature  from  the  Head  of  the 
Church,  Christian,  one  in  Christ.  And  these 
two,  at  present  dwelling  together,  are  yet 
constantly  at  war ;  the  weakness  and  defeat 


IN  CHRIST.  97 

of  the  one  always  equivalent  to  the  strength 
and  conquest  of  the  other. 

Will  some  one  take  up  the  proverb  then 
against  the  doctrine :  "  A  house  divided 
against  itself  shall  fall "  ?  And  so  it  must. 
"  We  know  that  our  earthly  house  of  this  tab- 
ernacle shall  be  dissolved."  And  this  is  our 
victory.  For  thus  only  can  this  troublesome 
tenant,  the  carnal  man,  be  ejected,  and  we, 
ceasing  our  self-conflicts  and  mortifications, 
enter  into  that  "building  of  God,  that  house 
not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens." 
Meanwhile  the  believer's  whole  care  and 
striving  must  be  directed  to  this  end,  the 
causing  of  the  house  of  Adam  to  wax  weaker 
and  weaker  day  by  day,  and  the  house  of 
Christ  to  wax  stronger  and  stronger. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  development  of  the 
Christian  towards  perfection  lies  always  in 
these  two  opposite  directions  :  the  subjecting, 
repressing,  and  mortifying  of  the  natural  man 
on  the  one  hand  ;  the  nourishing,  developing, 
and  renewing  of  the  spiritual  man  on  the 
other. 

Let  us  consider  these  two  duties  in  detail. 

The  first  is  not,  as  many  seem  to  deem  it, 
self-crucifixion,  something  to  be  begun  and 
7 


98  IN  CHRIST. 

carried  on  by  ourselves  and  in  ourselves. 
Nay,  it  is  the  crucifixion  which  the  believer 
has  undergone  in  Christ's  person  actualized, 
prolonged,  and  reiterated  in  his  own  person. 
As  it  is  the  office  of  faith  to  bring  us  into 
doctrinal  relationship  to  our  Lord's  dying,  so 
it  is  the  office  of  love  and  obedience  to  bring 
us  into  experimental  relationship  to  it.  For 
deep  as  is  the  mystery,  and  as  far  below  the 
soundings  of  ordinary  Christian  conscious- 
ness, there  is  such  a  thing  as  realizing 
Christ's  death,  and  making  it  our  own.  We 
know  that  even  two  human  souls  may  have 
become  so  identified  by  mutual  love  and  the 
fellowship  of  common  suffering,  that  one  is 
made  a  sharer  in  the  other's  death.  What  a 
touching  illustration  of  this  we  have  in  the 
lament  of  Eugenie  de  Gue'rin  over  the  death 
of  her  idolized  brother !  "  My  soul  lives  in  a 
coffin.  Oh,  yes,  buried,  interred  with  thee, 
my  brother.  Just  as  I  used  to  live  in  thy  life, 
I  am  dead  in  thy  death,  dead  to  all  happiness, 
all  hope  below." 

Doubtless  this  is  the  expression  of  what 
was  sadly  real  to  the  heart  of  her  who  uttered 
the  words ;  but  not  more  so  than  that  con- 
fession of  a  divine  kindredship  in  suffering 


IN  CHRIST.  99 

which  Paul  makes,  when  he  declares  that 
the  world  is  crucified  unto  him,  and  he  unto 
the  world,  and  that  he  is  "  always  bearing 
about  in  his  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,"  —  statements  so  deep  in  their  sugges- 
tion of  spiritual  intimacy  as  to  make  it  seem 
almost  as  though  his  very  consciousness  had 
become  identified  with  that  of  His  Lord. 

But  while  there  may  be  something  in  this 
which  few  can  hope  to  imitate  or  even  com- 
prehend, there  is  also  that  which  is  very  plain 
and  practical.  The  mortifying  of  the  flesh, 
the  daily  subduing  of  its  sinful  affections  and 
lusts,  the  bringing  of  the  whole  body  under  the 
dominion  of  the  cross,  is  not  this  most  vital 
to  the  believer's  growth  in  holiness  ?  For 
our  justification^  the  crucifixion  ended  indeed 
in  Christ ;  but  for  our  sanctification,  it  must 
be  prolonged  and  perpetuated  in  ourselves. 
Besides  his  heritage  of  peace  in  the  death  of 
Jesus,  every  faithful  disciple  recognizes  an- 
other legacy,  even  "  that  which  is  behind  in 
the  afflictions  of  Christ"  l  and  which  he  is  "  to 
fill  up  in  his  flesh  for  his  body's  sake,  which 
is  the  Church."  And  this  spiritual  birthright 
he  is  never  to  part  with.  What  a  fearful 
offense  then  is  his  who  makes  the  cross  a 
»  Col.  L  24. 


IOO  IN  CHRIST. 

reprieve  for  the  flesh  instead  of  an  instru- 
ment for  its  subjection,  who  reasons  that 
because  Christ  has  suffered  in  the  flesh, 
therefore  he  may  live  without  suffering  in 
the  flesh.  Quite  contrary  is  this  to  the  Scrip- 
ture doctrine.  "  Forasmuch,  then,  as  Christ 
hath  suffered  in  the  flesh,  arm  yourselves  like- 
wise with  the  same  mind"  J  "  The  saint,  as 
having  been  judged  in  the  person  of  Christ, 
and  knowing  that  Christ  for  him  has  borne 
the  cross,  follows  on  by  that  cross,  to  judge 
and  mortify  all  that  he  finds  in  himself  still 
contrary  to  his  Lord.  The  flesh  is  contrary 
to  that  Holy  One  ;  the  flesh  in  him  therefore 
must  die." 2  Its  perverse  affections  must  suf- 
fer daily  denial ;  its  cries  for  unholy  indul- 
gence must  be  answered  with  stern  refusals  ; 
its  high  thoughts  and  proud  ambitions  must 
be  made  to  endure  the  cross  and  despise  the 
shame  of  constant  humiliations.  So  that  if 
we  embrace  the  cross  only  that  we  may  be 
borne  above  the  reach  of  pain  and  loss,  that 
human  nature  may  be  spared  instead  of  slain 
by  it,  we  have  learned  Christ  but  imperfectly. 
Not  by  thrusting  away  the  atonement  alone, 
but  by  "  minding  earthly  things,"  living  for 
1  I  Pet  iv.  i.  2  Andrew  Jukes. 


IN  CHRIST.  IOI 

them  instead  of  being  dead  to  them,  do  we 
place  ourselves  among  the  "enemies  of  the 
cross  of  Christ."  1  While  therefore  the  voice 
of  the  merely  superficial  disciple  is,  "  Let  us 
go  to  Christ  that  we  may  escape  suffering 
and  death,"  the  voice  of  the  true  disciple  is 
ever  that  of  Thomas,  "  Let  us  go  that  we  may 
die  with  Him" 

Die  with  Him  !  Both  suffering  and  death, 
while  they  are  the  common  and  inevitable 
heritage  of  the  race,  may  in  the  believer's 
case  be  so  linked  into  union  with  the  cross 
and  passion  of  his  Lord,  that  they  shall  in  a 
certain  sense  be  transformed  from  inflictions 
into  sacrifices.  If  he  joyfully  puts  his  free- 
will into  the  dispensations  of  God's  sovereign 
will,  and  thus  takes  up  the  cross  instead  of 
enduring  it  like  Simon  the  Cyrenean  by  com- 
pulsion, he  has  become  an  offerer  instead  of 
a  victim,  prolonging  in  his  own  body  the  suf- 
ferings of  his  Lord  whereby  he  is  perfected. 
He  has  taken  chastisement  out  of  the  hand 
of  blind  adversity,  and  made  it  an  instrument 
of  self-discipline.  So  that  the  disciple  may 
find  his  needed  cross  without  imposing  self- 
appointed  austerities  upon  himself,  even  in 
i  Phil  iii.  i& 


102  IN  CHRIST. 

the  willing  acceptance  of  that  which  is  against 
the  natural  will,  but  which  God  sends  upon 
him  in  labors  and  in  humiliations,  in  sickness 
and  in  trials,  in  privations  and  in  death. 

But  how  hard  it  is  for  Christians  to  learn 
this  lesson,  that  salvation  is  not  according  to 
the  will  of  the  flesh,  but  contrary  to  it  ;  not 
from  death,  but  through  it.  The  Master's 
word  is,  "  He  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake 
shall  find  it."  And  yet  when  called  to  en- 
dure this  loss  in  giving  up  some  dearest  joy 
or  some  "  other  self"  according  to  the  flesh, 
we  wonder  and  demur,  perhaps  count  our- 
selves forsaken  of  our  Master,  and  take  up 
Martha's  plaintive  cry,  "  Lord,  if  thou  hadst 
been  here,  my  brother  had  not  died."  To 
which  Jesus  only  answers,  "  I  am  the  Res- 
urrection and  the  Life."  Not  to  give  us  im- 
munity from  death,  but  to  lead  us  through  it 
to  life  ;  not  to  save  us  from  the  cross,  but  to 
bring  us  by  way  of  it  to  a  blessed  crown,  is 
our  Lord's  purpose  concerning  us. 

Were  this  crucial  test  of  disciplcship,  the 
willing  surrender  of  self  in  all  its  forms,  its 
will,  its  pleasure,  its  righteousness,  insisted 
on  in  the  Church  as  it  is  in  the  gospel,  we 
fear  it  would  be  found  that  the  offense  of  the 


IN  CHRIST.  103 

cross  had  not  ceased.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
were  all  who  are  Christ's  to  show  the  holy 
triumph  there  is  in  giving  up  all  for  Him,  the 
deep  joy  in  being  partakers^of  his  sufferings, 
the  blessed  life  that  comes  through  daily  death 
in  Him,  how  powerfully  •  would  the  ancient 
glory  of  the  cross  be  vindicated. 

For  the  love  of  our  Lord,  then,  let  not  the 
doctrine  of  the  cross,  and  the  endurance  of 
the  cross  be  separated  in  our  lives,  that  so  we 
may  forsooth  be  saved  by  crucifixion  and  yet 
saved  from  crucifixion. 

Is  that  instrument  of  our  Redeemer's  suf- 
fering more  beautiful  to  Him,  as  when  carved 
in  wood  or  stone  it  stands  as  a  symbol  of 
faith,  or  as  when  wrought  into  an  ordinance 
it  serves  as  a  sacrament  of  allegiance,  than 
when,  reproduced  in  a  mortified  life,  it  is 
made  the  ornament  of  a  meek  and  quiet 
spirit  ?  To  trace  its  outlines  in  a  self-surren- 
dered will ;  to  show  its  transfigured  form  in 
the  daily  yielding  of  our  reluctant  flesh  to 
hard  service  for  our  Lord  ;  to  exhibit  its 
marks  in  a  wounded  but  unresisting  pride ; 
to  show  a  carnal  mind  always  delivered  up  to 
death  by  it  for  Christ's  sake,  this  will  be  the 
disciple's  life-long  work,  if  he  truly  under- 
stand his  calling. 


IO4  W  CHRIST. 

To  some  this  may  seem  a  hard  doctrine, 
and  to  others  a  contemptible  one.  Even 
while  we  write  we  seem  to  hear  such  words 
as  asceticism  and  pietism  whispered  against 
it.  But  we  can  only  ask,  Has  the  old  man 
grown  better  during  these  eighteen  hundred 
years,  so  that,  whereas  the  primitive  saints 
were  to  put  him  off  with  his  deeds,  we  may 
be  allowed  to  spare  him  and  indulge  him  ? 
Has  the  body  of  the  flesh  become  so  kind 
and  so  helpful  to  the  Spirit,  that  we  have  no 
need,  like  Paul,  to  keep  it  under  and  bring  it 
into  subjection  lest  we  be  castaways  ?  If 
there  were  no  answer  from  revelation  to  this 
question,  there  is  one  from  universal  human 
experience.  None  has  ever  yet  found  un- 
tempered  self-gratification  compatible  with 
strong  spiritual  growth.  None  has  ever  yet 
discovered  how  to  give  nature  all  it  asks, 
without  defrauding  grace.  Whether  it  be 
the  "  lust  of  the  flesh  "  restraining  the  body 
from  chastened  self-control  ;  or  the  "  lust  of 
the  eyes"  withdrawing  the  vision  from  single 
contemplation  of  Jesus  Christ ;  or  the  "  pride 
of  life  "  lifting  up  the  heart  in  vain  glory,  the 
testimony  of  experience  is  at  one  with  that 
of  Scripture,  that  "  fleshly  lusts  war  against 


Iff  CHRIST.  IO5 

the  soul."  Never  can  they  be  turned  into 
allies ;  never  will  they  consent  to  be  mere 
neutrals  in  the  field. 

Surely,  therefore,  the  loyal  believer  will  not 
count  it  treason  against  human  nature  to 
take  up  arms  against  himself  at  the  call  of 
Christ,  if  it  is  by  self-subjection  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  to  be  set  up  in  him.  Nor 
will  suffering  be  deemed  an  anomaly  after 
the  sufferings  of  Jesus  finished  for  us,  nor 
death  a  redundancy  after  his  dying  endured 
for  us,  if  the  life  of  God  within  the  soul  only 
reaches  its  triumph  in  the  casting  out  of  the 
life  of  nature.  Rather  will  he  rejoice  to  carry 
on  a  warfare  which  Jesus  Christ  begun,  not 
ended  for  us ;  and  to  bend  his  will  to  a  ne- 
cessity which  He  has  sanctified,  not  abolished 
for  us.1 

But  as  we  have  intimated,  there  is  another 
element  in  the  Christian  life  that  forms  the 
exact  counterpart  to  this  which  we  have  been 
considering  ;  namely,  that  abiding  in  Christ, 
and  that  growing  up  in  all  things  into  Him 

1  "Jesus  Christ  has  not  abolished  our  sufferings  and  oui 
mortality,  but  He  has  made  them  what  they  never  could 
have  been  without  Him,  a  bitter  dew  which  develops  and 
matures  in  our  souls  the  blessed  germ  of  faith."  —  Vinet, 


IO6  IN  CHRIST. 

who  is  the  Head,  which  is  the  end  and  ob- 
ject of  this  withdrawing  from  self  and  this 
mortifying  in  all  things  of  our  members  which 
are  on  the  earth.  A  negative  process  is  not 
adequate  to  accomplish  a  positive  result. 
And  no  amount  or  kind  of  self-denial  can 
make  one  holier,  unless  this  be  the  means  of 
bringing  him  into  more  intimate  fellowship 
with  Christ.  Every  retreat  from  the  life  of 
the  flesh  must  be  followed  by  a  deeper  enter- 
ing into  the  life  of  the  Spirit.  Self-denial  is, 
according  to  its  degree,  a  parting  company 
with  Adam  that  we  may  not  walk  after  the 
flesh  ;  but  prayer  and  faith  and  love  and  obe- 
dience must  accompany,  as  the  means  of 
joining  ourselves  more  entirely  to  Christ,  and 
of  abiding  in  Him,  that  we  may  so  walk  even 
as  He  walked. 

Now  is  it  not  painfully  common  for  Chris- 
tians to  rest  satisfied  with  the  fact  that  they 
have  life  in  the  risen  Jesus,  without  any  striv- 
ings for  higher  degrees  in  that  life  ?  Just  as 
we  are  prone  to  end  our  crucifixion  with 
Christ's  cross,  *we  are  prone  to  end  our  seek- 
ing of  those  things  which  are  above,  in  the 
fact  that  we  are  risen  with  Christ.  "  He  that 
hath  the  Son  hath  life  "  indeed.  But  let  him 


IN  CHRIST. 

not  forget  that  his  blessing  is  only  begun  in 
this  possession,  since  Jesus'  work  is  only  be- 
gun in  this  gift.  "  I  am  come  that  they 
might  have  life,  and  that  they  might  have  it 
more  abundantly!'  The  seed  of  God  must 
not  abide  alone.  The  soil  of  human  nature 
has  been  furrowed  to  no  purpose  by  chas- 
tisement, and  softened  without  use  by  morti- 
fication, if  this  kernel  of  divine  life  be  not 
thereby  helped  to  reproduce  itself  in  more 
abundant  harvest.  Life  begets  life  contin- 
ually. Nay  more,  the  life  of  God  must  be 
daily  replacing  within  the  soul  what  death 
has  taken  away,  filling  each  void  made  by 
self-denial  with  some  positive  blessing,  and 
causing  every  spot  from  which  a  natural 
affection  has  been  uprooted,  to  spring  up 
with  some  divine  affection. 

Herein,  if  we  mistake  not,  has  been  the 
radical  defect  in  the  whole  system  of  monas- 
tic penance  and  discipline.  Its  destructive 
work  has  far  exceeded  its  constructive.  It 
has  not  builded  into  the  rents  which  it  has 
made  in  human  nature  with  a  better  material, 
nor  been  careful  to  heal  over  the  deep  wounds 
which  it  has  inflicted  upon  the  carnal  man 
with  a  new  growth  from  the  Spirit  Hence 


108  IN  CHRIST. 

the  type  of  life  which  it  has  generally  pre- 
sented has  been  that  of  ever  increasing  bro- 
kenness  rather  than  that  of  growing  whole- 
ness of  being,  and  its  ideal  saints  have  been 
those  most  thoroughly  uprooted  and  torn 
away  from  nature,  rather  than  those  most 
truly  "  rooted  and  built  up  in  Christ" 

But  what  will  it  profit  one  to  lose  the  whole 
world,  if  he  does  not  gain  his  own  soul  ?  gain 
it  in  that  only  way  in  which  it  can  be  gained, 
by  bringing  it  more  and  more  into  commun- 
ion with  the  life  of  Christ  ?  As  it  was  the 
supreme  mission  of  Jesus  to  give  eternal  life, 
so  it  is  the  supreme  calling  of  the  believer  to 
appropriate  that  life.  And  for  this  some- 
thing more  than  an  empty  heart  is  demanded. 
There  must  be  a  hungering  and  a  thirsting 
heart,  a  believing  and  a  praying  heart  —  a 
heart  ever  longing  after  God,  and  seeking  to 
know  more  of  God. 

Self-denial  is  of  the  nature  of  self-discovery, 
since  it  enables  one  to  look  more  deeply  into 
human  nature  through  the  very  void  it  has 
refused  to  fill.  But  "  know  thyself"  is  not 
the  gospel  precept  for  the  attainment  of  eter- 
nal life.  "  This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might 
know  Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus 


IN  CHRIST.  109 

Christ  whom  Thou  hast  sent"  And  how 
"  know,"  except  by  that  daily  acquainting 
ourselves  with  Him  which  comes  through 
faith  and  prayer,  through  a  diligent  searching 
of  the  Scriptures,  through  a  constant  walking 
in  the  Spirit,  and  through  a  strenuous  exer- 
cise of  vital  godliness  ?  Every  duty  indeed 
of  the  Christian  has  a  direct  relation  to  this 
result. 

Communion,  the  constant  partaking  of  the 
divine  life  through  the  appetites  and  organs 
which  that  life  has  supplied,  is  the  knowing 
of  God  through  identification  with  the  nature 
of  God.  As  between  man  and  man,  thought 
is  the  medium  of  life,  and  the  words  of  inti- 
mate conversation  serve  to  transmit  the  sub- 
tle essence  of  intelligence,  affection,  and  feel- 
ing, from  one  to  another ;  so  between  the 
renewed  soul  and  God.  Spiritual  converse 
is  the  means  to  a  community  of  spiritual  life. 
But  as  in  the  one  case,  so  in  the  other,  such 
knowledge  is  possible  only  because  of  the 
possession  of  a  common  spirit.  "  For  what 
man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the 
spirit  of  man  which  is  in  him  ?  Even  so  the 
things  of  God  knoweth  no  man  but  the  Spirit 
of  God."  And  this  spirit  in  the  believer  is 


IIO  IN  CHRIST. 

the  interpreter  to  God  of  his  longings,  mak- 
ing intercession  for  him  with  groanings  that 
cannot  be  uttered,  and  the  revealer  to  him  of 
the  things  of  Christ,  which  He  taketh  and 
showeth  unto  him. 

And  meditation  serves  the  same  end  ;  for 
from  the  devout  contemplation  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Christ,  his  image  is  insensibly  repro- 
duced in  the  life  of  the  believer.  And  so, 
as  by  communion  one  enters  into  fellowship 
with  Jesus  Christ,  by  meditation  he  enters 
into  conformity  to  Him.  And  these  two  are 
the  principal  requisites  to  our  attainment  of 
the  fullness  of  the  stature  of  Christ,  his  life 
constantly  imparted,  and  his  character  con- 
stantly reflected.  Through  the  one,  obedi- 
ence tends  more  and  more  to  become  the 
spontaneous  law  of  our  being,  and  service  the 
unconstrained  fulfillment  of  God's  word  ;  and 
through  the  other,  likeness  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
grows  more  and  more  towards  realized  one- 
ness with  Him,  while,  "beholding  as  in  a 
glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  we  are  changed 
into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory,  even 
as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord." * 

Now  while  we  have  said  elsewhere  that  the 

»  2  Cor.  iii.  18. 


IN  CHRIST,  III 

negative  process  of  self-mortification  is  not 
adequate  to  the  positive  result  of  conformity 
to  Christ,  the  opposite  is  not  true.  Com- 
munion with  Jesus  is  a  certain  means  to  the 
excommunication  of  sin.  Growth  in  grace 
can  never  fail  to  promote  the  subjection  of 
nature.  If  we  have  striven  in  vain  to  root 
out  the  tares  which  the  enemy  has  sown 
in  the  heart,  we  may  yet  rejoice  to  know 
that  they  cannot  endure  the  burning  heat  of 
Christ's  unclouded  presence.  The  offending 
eye  which  we  have  not  succeeded  in  pluck- 
ing out,  we  may  yet  so  dazzle  by  a  continued 
looking  unto  Jesus,  that  it  shall  be  blind  to 
its  former  allurements. 

We  shall  not  wait  then  till  we  have  per- 
fected our  self-denial  before  we  begin  our 
growth  into  Christ.  The  two  processes  must 
ever  be  going  on  together.  How  striking 
the  significance  of  that  twofold  exhortation 
of  Paul  so  constantly  repeated,  "Put  ye  off" 
and  "  Put  ye  on." 

"  Seeing  that  ye  have  put  off"  the  old  man 
with  his  deeds,  and  have  put  on  the  new 
man."  l  This  is  the  ideal  saint,  —  the  man 
in  Christ  whom  God  has  fully  justified.  And 

1  Col.  iii.  9,  IQ. 


112  IN  CHRIST. 

the  whole  course  of  the  Christian  life  must 
consist  in  the  transferring  of  this  ideal  into 
the  actual,  in  progressive  sanctification.  So 
must  we  be  ever  putting  off  all  that  belongs 
to  the  old  man, —  "  Anger,  wrath,  malice,  blas- 
phemy, filthy  communication  out  of  the 
mouth  ; "  and  putting  on  all  that  belongs  to 
the  new  man,  —  "  an  heart  of  pity,  kindness, 
lowliness  of  mind,  meekness,  long  suffering, 
and  above  all  things  love,  which  is  the  bond 
of  perfectness."  l 

If  there  is  something  painful  in  such  a 
process,  this  life-long  clothing  and  uncloth- 
ing of  the  soul,  we  know  that  it  will  have  an 
end.  When  death  shall  have  disrobed  us  of 
our  mortality,  we  shall  cease  from  our  putting 
off,  and  fold  up  and  lay  aside  for  the  last  time 
that  garment  which  we  have  striven  in  vain 
to  keep  unspotted  from  the  world.  And 
when  we  awake  in  the  morning  of  our  re- 
demption, our  putting  on  will  be  also  con- 
summated, even  "  when  this  corruptible  shall 
have  put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  shall 
have  put  on  immortality." 

1  Col.  iii.  1.* 


VI.    STANDING    IN   CHRIST. 


^im  are  pc  in  Cljjri^t 
of  o3ot«  10  matte  unto  ii 

»  c^r.  i.  30 


»    *    * 


Cljere  i^  therefore  noto  no  contain  na 
tion  to  tjjcni  tl^at  are  in  €|)ri#t 


Rom.  viii.  I. 


IBJcrcin  !pe  JatJ  mata  1136?  acccnteo  in 
tljc  SMotoeo.  EPH.  i.  6. 


pe  arc  compete  in  IDim. 

Cf>/.  ii.  10. 
* 


VI. 

STANDING   IN  CHRIST. 

[F  the  Christian  life  on  earth  must  be 
one  of  perpetual  conflict,  it  is  not 
therefore  one  of  perpetual  uncer- 
tainty. For  though  the  believer's  practi- 
cal sanctification,  or  what  he  is  in  himself, 
may  be  the  subject  of  constant  solicitude 
and  intense  anxiety,  yet  his  justification,  or 
what  he  is  in  Christ,  is  something  entirely 
aloof  and  detached  from  all  the  vicissitudes 
and  fluctuations  of  Christian  experience.  It 
neither  rises  nor  falls  with  the  tide  of  feeling. 
It  knows  nothing  of  degrees.  Christ  being 
the  standard  by  which  it  is  gauged,  it  becomes 
absolute  and  without  the  possibility  of  change, 
since  He  is  "  the  same,  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever." 

Our  communion  may  be  subject  to  sad 
alternations  of  warmth  and  coldness  ;  our 
love  may  burn  strongly  to-day  and  feebly  to- 


Il6  IN  CHRIST. 

morrow.  But  that  does  not  change  our  real 
standing  before  God.  We  cannot  now  be  in 
a  state  of  justification  and  now  out  of  it. 
Doubt  and  unfaithfulness  may  throw  the 
shadow  back  many  degrees  to-day  on  the 
dial-plate  of  hope ;  but  God  does  not  look  at 
that  to  determine  our  acceptance  with  Him. 
He  sees  us  only  in  the  light  of  the  true  Sun 
of  righteousness,  and  that  is  "  without  varia- 
bleness neither  shadow  of  turning." 

Is  then  the  wandering  son  just  as  near, and 
the  faithless  one  just  as  dear,  to  the  Father's 
heart,  as  that  son  to  whom  He  saith,  "  Thou 
art  ever  with  me,  and  all  that  I  have  is  thine  "  ? 
Nay.  But  he  is  none  the  less  a  son.  For 
sonship  does  not  depend  on  fellowship,  but 
fellowship  on  sonship.  An  apostle  of  free 
grace 1  in  degenerate  times  wrote,  "  Beloved 
John  may  have  more  of  Christ's  affection  than 
Philip,  and  a  brighter  crown  than  Philip,  but 
he  cannot  have  more  justification  than  Philip. 
Because,  though  there  are  degrees  in  the  af- 
fection and  rewards  of  Christ,  there  can  be 
none  in  his  justification.  A  man  must  either 
have  the  whole  or  none  at  all ;  must  either  be 
justified  from  all  things  or  be  condemned." 

1  John  Berridge. 


IN  CHRIST.  Ii; 

A  strong  statement,  indeed,  and  perhaps  an 
incredible  one  to  those  who  are  enamored  of 
the  discipline  of  uncertainty  as  the  only  means 
of  keeping  the  believer  watchful.  But  it  is 
not  stronger  certainly  than  that  word  of  an 
older  Apostle,  "  There  is  therefore  now  no 
condemnation  to  them  which  are  in  Christ 
Jesus." 

And  is  it  not  well  for  us  sometimes  to  go 
around  to  the  God-ward  side  of  the  covenant, 
and  from  much  and  bitter  self-condemnation, 
enter  into  God's  judgment  of  us  as  it  is  in 
Christ  ?  Faith  has  its  appointed  rest  as  well 
as  its  prescribed  labor,  when  from  the  week- 
day toil  and  conflict  of  working  out  our  own 
salvation,  we  may  enter  into  our  chamber  of 
peace  in  the  Lord,  and  shutting  our  doors 
about  us  say,  "  Return  unto  thy  rest,  O  my 
soul,  for  the  Lord  liath  dealt  bountifully  with 
thee" — so  bountifully,  if  we  will  remember  it, 
that  in  our  destitution  of  any  satisfying  right- 
eousness, Christ  is  of  God  "  made  unto  us 
righteousness,"  and  in  our  emptiness  of  all 
good,  "  of  his  fullness  have  all  we  received, 
and  grace  for  grace." 

Many  will  warn  us  of  the  peril  of  slothful- 
ness  and  vain  confidence  arising  from  such  a 


Il8  IN  CHRIST. 

doctrine ;  and  we  on  our  part  must  warn  such 
/)f  the  danger  alike  of  a  feeble  faith  and  futile 
works,  arising  from  an  unestablished  assur- 
ance. If  faith  has  no  standing  ground  except 
what  it  wins  for  itself;  no  stronghold  except 
what  it  is  enabled  to  build  from  time  to  time 
by  its  own  endeavors,  it  can  have  little  com- 
fort, and  can  make  but  few  conquests.  And 
God  has  not  ordained  the  matter  thus.  He 
has  put  a  greater  attainment  behind  us,  than 
the  most  ardent  disciple  dares  to  place  imme- 
diately before  himself,  even  completeness  in 
the  Lord  Jesus. 

And  so  from  every  fresh  manifestation  of 
our  self-incompleteness,  we  may  retreat  under 
cover  to  this  gracious  assurance,  "  Ye  are 
complete  in  Him."  We  may  sink  into  Christ 
when  we  cannot  rise  to  Him.  And  thus  we 
shall  be  made  strong  and  victorious  through 
apparent  defeat,  as  again  and  again  — 

"  The  steps  of  Faith 
Fall  on  the  seeming  void  and  find 
The  Rock  beneath." 

If  now  it  be  asked,  How  can  it  be  true  of 
imperfect,  tempted,  and  failing  believers  that 
they  are  complete  in  Christ  ?  we  must  find  the 
answer  in  God's  gracious  judgment  of  them 


IN  CHRIST.  119 

as  revealed  by  the  Spirit.  From  this  it  would 
appear  that  so  far  as  the  question  of  the 
Christian's  acceptance  and  standing  before  a 
righteous  law  is  concerned,  God  sees  nothing 
from  his  throne  but  Christ  Jesus  alone  and 
altogether.  And  since  the  believer  is  in  Him 
and  one  with  Him,  he  shares  his  place  in  the 
Father's  heart,  and  unworthy  as  he  is  in  him- 
self, yet  he  may  know  without  a  doubt  that 
he  is  "  accepted  in  the  Beloved? 

And  what  a  blessed  word  is  this,  "  in  the 
Beloved?  In  that  voice  that  came  from 
heaven,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I 
am  well  pleased,"  we  may  now  hear  God's 
approving  sentence  upon  ourselves,  as  well 
as  upon  our  Lord.  For  being  in  Christ,  the 
beams  of  the  eternal  love  falling  upon  Him 
must  fall  upon  us  as  included  in  Him,  thus 
embracing  us,  within  the  circle  of  the  divine 
complacency.  We  cannot  be  loved  of  God 
apart  from  Christ.  For  the  divine  approval 
can  only  go  out  to  that  which  is  worthy,  and 
who  that  ever  walked  the  earth  has  been 
worthy,  save  One  ?  Neither  can  we  be  con- 
demned if  we  are  in  Christ.  For  the  divine 
disapprobation  can  fall  only  upon  what  is  sinful. 
And  He  is  without  sin.  To  be  in  Him,  there- 


I2O  IN  CHRIST. 

fore,  is  to  be  loved  of  the  Father,  because  it 
is  to  be  in  the  very  focus  of  the  divine  affec- 
tion. To  be  in  Him  is  also  to  love  the  Fa- 
ther, since  it  is  to  be  in  union  with  the  only 
heart  that  loves  supremely  and  perfectly. 

Is  not  the  occasion  of  much  of  our  distrust 
and  darkness  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  we 
estimate  ourselves  by  ourselves,  "  according 
to  the  measure  of  a  man,"  instead  of  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  Christ  ?  He  is  the 
true  exponent  of  our  standing  before  God. 
"  As  He  is,  so  are  we  in  this  world."  1  He 
holds  us  in  Himself,  and  presents  us  to  the 
eye  of  the  Father,  bright  in  the  shining  vest- 
ments of  his  own  righteousness,  and  rich 
with  the  dowry  of  his  blood-bought  merit. 
He  is  not  a  meditator  of  one  but  of  two.  He 
not  only  represents  God  to  us  in  his  own  be- 
ing, "  the  brightness  of  his  glory  and  the  ex- 
press image  of  his  person,"  but  He  repre- 
sents us  to  God.  We  see  God  in  Christ 
God  sees  us  in  Christ.  God  was  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself.  We  in 
Christ  are  reconciled  unto  God.  Never  can 
we  pray,  "  O  Lord,  look  Thou  upon  me; 
preserve  my  soul,  for  /  am  holy."  More  and 
1  i  John  i.  1 8. 


IN  CHRIST.  121 

more  shall  we  learn  to  take  up  and  urge,  with 
all  the  energy  of  a  self-ignoring  faith,  the  cry, 
"  Behold,  O  God,  our  Shield,  and  look  upon 
the  face  of  thine  Anointed."  And  the  even- 
ness of  our  joy  and  the  stability  of  our  hope 
depend  upon  our  keeping  our  gaze  fixed  im- 
movably upon  that  one  Blessed  Object  upon 
which  the  Father's  gaze  is  always  fixed. 

If  we  measure  our  hope  solely  by  the  clear- 
ness with  which  Christ's  likeness  is  reflected 
in  our  own  character  and  experience,  we  can 
find  little  comfort.  For  our  life  is  at  best  but 
a  dim  and  distorted  mirror  that  can  neither 
hold  nor  reflect  any  perfect  image.  If,  for- 
getting ourselves,  we  delight  only  in  look- 
ing unto  Jesus  and  tracing  the  lineaments 
of  his  divine  countenance,  we  shall  not  only 
be  ever  growing  into  the  same  image  from 
glcry  to  glory  till  we  are  sanctified  ;  but  re- 
membering that  God  contemplates  us  even 
now  in  that  image,  we  shall  be  able  to  rejoice 
as  those  that  are  already  justified. 

Now,  while  such  words  as  "justified  from 
all  things,"  and  "  no  condemnation,"  as  ap- 
plied to  the  believer,  establish  beyond  a  ques- 
tion both  the  fullness  and  the  fixedness  of 
his  pardon,  do  not  the  great  mass  of  Chris- 


122  IN  CHRIST. 

tians  regard  it  practically  as  lying  along  a 
kind  of  sliding  scale  of  frames  and  feelings 
where  it  is  depressed  or  elevated  according 
to  the  feebleness  or  intensity  of  our  religious 
comfort ;  capable  of  variation,  indeed,  from 
the  zero  point  of  almost  total  condemnation 
to  that  of  full  acceptance  ? 

But  we  cannot  forget  that  as  God  put  the 
terms  of  salvation  so  high  that  we  could  not 
of  ourselves  make  them  ;  so  He  has  put  our 
title-deeds  to  salvation  so  high  that  we  may 
not  mar  them,  having  hidden  them  "  with 
Christ  in  God."  As  "  holy  Rutherford  "  says, 
"  Unbelief  may  perhaps  tear  the  copies  of  the 
covenant  which  Christ  hath  given  you  ;  but 
He  still  keeps  the  original  in  heaven  with 
Himself.  Your  doubts  and  fears  are  no  part 
of  the  covenant,  neither  can  they  change 
Christ." 

If  Christ  is  the  complete  and  only  reason 
of  our  acceptance,  must  there  not  be  some 
greater  reason  for  our  rejection  than  our 
doubts  and  misgivings  ?  If  "  in  Christ  Jesus 
we  who  sometime  were  afar  off  are  made 
nigh,"  will  it  not  take  something  more  than 
our  distrust  and  despair  to  remove  us  far  off 
again,  and  set  us  among  aliens  and  strangers  ? 


IN  CHRIST.  123 

Let  us  speak  with  the  deepest  reverence 
on  so  tender  a  theme  ;  and  put  off  the  shoes 
of  self-confidence  from^mr  feet  as  we  tread 
upon  this  holy  ground,  and  dwell  upon  this 
grace  wherein  we  stand.  And  yet  we  may 
well  beware  lest  God's  faithfulness  find  us 
more  skeptical  than  his  severity.  The  deep- 
est sense  of  unworthiness  is  nowise  inconsist- 
ent with  the  highest  confidence  in  God's  full 
and  perfect  justification  of  us.  And  we  may 
without  contradiction  join  the  confession  of  a 
weak  faith  and  much  guilty  unbelief  with  the 
exulting  confidence,  "  If  we  believe  not,  yet 
He  abideth  faithful ;  He  cannot  deny  Him- 
self." l 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  temptation 
to  reckon  our  standing  with  God  by  our  sense 
of  personal  worthiness  at  any  given  time. 
But  we  have  only  to  know  that  the  righteous- 
ness of  Christ  is  upon  us  by  our  union  with 
Him,  to  be  assured  that  the  approval  and 
blessedness  which  that  righteousness  can  win 
for  Him,  it  can  win  for  us. 

True,  as  John  Bunyan  says,  "  The  right- 
eousness is  still  in  Christ,  and  not  in  us,  even 
when  we  are  made  partakers  of  the  benefit  of 

1  2  Tim.  ii.  13. 


124  IN  CHRIST. 

it ;  even  as  the  wing  and  feathers  still  abide 
in  the  hen  when  the  chickens  are  covered, 
kept,  and  warmed  thereby."  But  that  they 
who  have  put  their  trust  under  the  shadow 
of  his  wing  are  covered  and  kept  and  warmed, 
is  just  what  we  are  urging.  Aye,  so  com- 
pletely covered,  that  the  storm  of  a  violated 
law  cannot  reach  them  ;  and  so  kept,  that 
that  wicked  one  toucheth  them  not  ;  and  so 
warmed,  that  no  death  chill  of  the  penalty  of 
sin  can  come  to  them.  And  it  is  this  fact, 
that  our  righteousness  is  not  our  own,  that 
makes  it  possible  for  us  to  glory  in  it,  joining 
to  the  confession,  "  /  know  that  in  me,  that  is 
in  my  flesh,  dwelleth  no  good  tiling"  1  that 
other,  "/  knew  a  man  in  Christ,  of  such  an 
one  will  I  glory'' 2 

Is  there  any  more  striking  illustration  of 
the  total  change  of  place  and  relationship 
which  the  Scriptures  recognize  as  having 
taken  place  in  the  believer  than  is  found  in 
Paul's  bold  way  of  dating  back  to  the  natural 
state  as  "  when  we  were  in  the  flesh  /  "  3  To 
be  in  Christ  is  to  be  in  the  true  Anno  Domini, 
from  whence  we  look  back  and  see  the  whole 
time  past  of  our  lives  lived  in  the  flesh  now 

1  Rom.  vii.  18.        2  2  Cor.  xii.  I.        8  Rom.  vii.  5. 


IN  CHRIST.  125 

ended  at  the  cross  ;  and  then  in  the  risen 
Christ  all  begun  afresh  in  perfect  blessing 
and  in  the  power  of  an  endless  life. 

We  signed  for  the  love  of  God  before,  but 
could  find  no  sense  or  assurance  of  it,  be- 
cause we  could  find  nothing  in  us  or  upon 
us  which  it  could  approve.  But  now  we  see 
how  as  risen  with  Christ  we  have  been  borne 
up  into  the  favor  of  the  Father  and  into  the 
full  fruition  of  the  prayer,  "  that  the  love 
wherewith  Thou  hast  loved  me  may  be  in  them 
and  I  in  them? 

We  sighed  for  better  desires  and  a  true 
"  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness." 
But  God  has  done  better  for  us  than  we 
knew  how  to  ask  or  think.  He  has  given  us 
both  the  hunger  and  its  satisfaction,  bofh  the 
new  nature  from  the  Lord  and  that  which 
that  nature  wants,  righteousness  in  the  Lord. 
The  law  of  entail  which  made  us  heirs  in 
Adam  of  what  we  most  longed  to  be  free 
from,  sin,  and  death  by  sin,  now  holds  to 
make  us  heirs  in  Christ  of  what  we  most 
longed  to  possess,  holiness  and  everlasting 
life.  "  As  is  the  earthy,  such  are  they  also 
that  are  earthy,  and  as  is  the  heavenly,  such 
are  they  also  that  are  heavenly? 


126  IN  CHRIST. 

And  what  shall  be  the  influence  of  these 
truths  upon  our  daily  life  ?  To  make  us  use 
little  heed,  because  we  have  such  a  plenitude 
of  righteousness  in  Christ,  to  fulfill  righteous- 
ness in  ourselves  ?  Nay,  but  do  they  not 
present  us  with  the  most  powerful  motive  to 
purity  that  one  can  possibly  have  ?  In 
Christ  our  righteousness,  we  see  not  what  we 
are  excused  from,  but  what  we  are  pledged 
to.  We  understand  ourselves  only  in  Him, 
what  we  are  in  God's  esteem,  and  not  the 
less  what  we  must  be  in  our  personal  attain- 
ment. 

In  divine  things  as  in  common  things  we 
say  that  a  noble  life  is  impossible  without  a 
noble  ideal.  But  what  if  that  ideal  be  a  holy 
Person,  and  He  not  One  whom  we  have  set 
before  ourselves,  but  One  whom  we  have  put 
on  ?  Ought  we  not  to  say  that  an  unholy 
life  should  be  impossible  in  such  a  case,  since 
the  ideal  has  become  more  than  an  incentive, 
it  has  become  the  sacred  guarantee  of  an 
actual  and  realized  perfection  in  ourselves  ? 

And  this  is  literally  the  case.  Justifica- 
tion pledges  a  holy  life  on  the  part  of  him 
who  receives  it,  just  as  truly  as  it  pledges 
eternal  life  on  the  part  of  Him  who  gives  it. 


IN  CHRIST.  127 

And  much  as  we  rejoice  in  that  gracious  de- 
cree wherein  He  has  made  us  *'  accepted  in 
the  Beloved,"  we  cannot  forget  that  wrapped 
up  in  the  same  decree  is  that  other  purpose 
wherein  "  He  also  did  predestinate  us  to  be 
conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son"  l  So 
that  it  would  seem  that  high  views  of  saint- 
ship  must  tend  inevitably  to  make  one  in- 
tensely eager  for  high  attainments  in  saint- 
ship. 

But  what  if  it  be  said  that  the  dwelling  by 
faith  in  a  position  so  much  above  our  actually 
attained  one,  must  end  in  our  dwelling  very 
little  among  the  common  every-day  duties  of 
practical  life  ?  No  objection  has  been  more 
strenuously  urged  than  this.  Yet  doubtless 
the  common  experience  of  Christians  is  that 
it  is  far  more  difficult  to  rise  betimes  above 
the  conflict  and  endeavor  of  hard  practical 
service,  into  the  rest  of  faith  and  the  blessed- 
ness of  assured  justification  in  Christ,  than 
having  so  risen  to  descend  again.  The 
Mount  of  Transfiguration  is  never  so  far  re- 
moved from  the  plain  of  daily  duty,  that  a  few 
steps  will  not  suffice  to  bring  us  back  among 
the  "  much  people  "  and  within  hearing  of  the 

1  Rom.  viii.  29. 


128  IN  CHRIST. 

beseeching  cry  of  those  possessed  of  the  evil 
spirit. 

And  more  than  this  ;  so  far  from  tending 
to  selfish  isolation  from  the  world  and  indif- 
ference to  its  sorrows,  its  needs,  and  its  sins, 
communion  with  Christ  ought  to  be  and  must 
inevitably  be,  if  real,  the  means  of  bringing 
us  into  the  deepest  fellowship  with  human 
suffering.  The  righteousness  of  Christ  can 
never  be  worn  as  a  mere  outer  garment,  which 
while  it  covers  the  soul  neither  touches  it  nor 
transforms  it.  Every  putting  on  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  must  result  more  and  more  in  hav- 
ing that  mind  in  us  which  was  also  in  Him  ; 
and  that  mind  is  one  which  leads  to  humilia- 
tion, even  unto  death,  for  the  sake  of  the  lost. 
We  cannot  forget  that  the  same  Apostle  who 
rested  so  absolutely  in  the  righteousness  of 
Christ  for  his  own  salvation,  that  he  said,  "  I 
count  all  things  but  loss  that  I  may  win 
Christ,  and  be  found  in  Him  not  having  mine 
own  righteousness"  yet  had  so  rpuch  of  the 
mind  of  Christ  respecting  the  salvation  of 
others,  that  he  said,  "  God  is  my  witness  how 
I  long  after  you  all  in  the  tender  heart  of  Jesus 
Christ." * 

»  Phil.  i.  8.* 


IN  CHRIST.  129 

We  must  remember  that  to  be  in  Christ  is 
not  only  to  be  in  union  with  the  divine  nature, 
but  also,  because  He  is  the  Son  of  man  as 
well  as  the  Son  of  God,  it  is  to  be  in  truest 
union  with  human  nature.  We  never  get  so 
near  the  heart  of  our  sorrowing  humanity,  as 
when  we  are  in  communion  with  the  heart  of 
the  man  of  sorrows.  And  if  we  have  prayed 
for  a  "  heart  baptized  into  a  sense  of  all  condi- 
tions" *  let  us  know  that  we  shall  find  the 
fullest  answer  to  our  prayer  in  realizing  that 
baptism  into  Christ  which  we  have  already 
received,  since  "  As  many  as  have  been  bap- 
tized into  Christ,  have  put  on  Christ,  in  whom 
is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  bond  nor  free,  male 
nor  female,  but  all  are  one  in  Christ  jfesus"  z 
Because  He  is  the  universal  man,  the  man 
without  a  country,  since  belonging  alike  to  all, 
and  the  man  without  exclusive  kindredship, 
since  finding  his  mother  and  his  brethren  in 
whomsoever  the  will  of  his  Father  is  obeyed, 
union  with  Him  must  lift  us,  as  nothing  else 
can,  above  all  respect  of  persons  and  into 
universal  sympathies.  Since,  then,  Christ  is 

1  "  I  prayed  to  God,"  says  George  Fox,  "  that  He  would 
baptize  my  heart  into  a  sense  of  all  conditions,  that  so  I 
might  be  able  to  enter  into  the  needs  and  sorrows  of  all." 

8  GaL  iii.  27,  28. 
9 


130  IN  CHRIST. 

not  divided,  we,  having  his  righteousness  upon 
us,  must  have  his  heart  within  us.  And  hav- 
ing that  heart,  how  shall  we  not  follow  whith- 
ersoever it  leads,  even  into  all  conditions  and 
into  all  needs  that  belong  to  our  race  ? 

And  if  a  sense  of  his  completeness  in 
Christ  does  not  beget  indifference  or  selfish- 
ness in  the  believer's  heart,  it  surely  cannot 
engender  pride.  For  is  not  pride  always 
some  form  of  self-consciousness  ?  And  it  is 
the  very  reverse  of  self-consciousness  to  know 
that  we  are  nothing  in  ourselves,  and  that  all 
our  righteousness  is  in  another  Or,  to  look 
at  the  opposite  of  pride,  can  true  humility 
flourish  except  under  the  shadow  of  some 
overtowering  greatness  ?  It  is  by  being  in 
the  all-worthy  One  that  we  discover  as  no- 
where else  how  unworthy  we  are,  because  of 
the  contrast  which  we  are  compelled  con- 
stantly to  behold. 

Experiment  has  demonstrated  that  the  most 
brilliant  light  which  human  science  can  pro- 
duce, when  projected  upon  the  disc  of  the  sun, 
is  literal  darkness  in  comparison.  In  Christ's 
righteousness  we  discover  the  worthlessness 
of  our  own,  —  how  it  not  only  can  add  noth- 
ing to  the  lustre  of  that  which  is  as  white  as 


IN  CHRIST.  131 

the  light,  but  would  rather  tarnish  it  if  it  were 
laid  upon  it.  And  so  every  contemplation  of 
ourselves  in  the  Perfect  One  must  make  self- 
righteousness  cover  its  face,  and  pride  shrink 
away  abashed. 

There  will  however  be  no  fleeing  away  from 
the  presence  of  the  Lord  on  this  account. 
With  the  deepest  sense  of  guilt  and  unholi- 
ness,  there  will  yet  be  a  deathless  clinging 
of  the  heart  to  Him  whose  moral  glory  has 
so  humbled  us.  With  the  profound  sense  of 
unfitness  to  be  in  his  righteousness,  there  will 
be  connected  an  inward  consciousness  that  it 
is  the  only  shelter  one  can  be  in  and  live. 

And  if  no  sense  of  unworthiness  can  keep 
us  from  Jesus,  no  sense  of  worthiness  ever 
can.  For  the  Refuge  of  the  sinner  must  ever 
also  be  the  Refuge  of  the  saint,  —  "  the  strong 
tower  into  which  the  righteous  runneth  and  is 
safe." 

The  Lord  may  give  us  many  a  victory  in 
our  upward  strivings  towards  perfection  ;  and 
He  may  add  daily  to  our  stature  as  we  seek 
to  grow  up  into  Him  who  is  our  Head  ;  but 
when  shall  we  get  beyond  the  deep  petition 
of  that  hymn  which  its  author  so  worthily 


132  IN  CHRIST. 

styled   "  a  living  and  dying  prayer  for  the 
holiest  believer  in  the  world"  — 

"  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  Thee  "  ? 

From  our  sin  and  from  our  righteousness 
alike,  from  our  evil  deeds  and  from  our  good 
deeds,  from  the  rebukes  of  an  upbraiding 
conscience  and  from  the  flatteries  of  an  easy 
conscience,  we  shall  ever  need  to  fly  unto  that 
name  whereby  we  are  called,  —  "  The  Lord 
our  Righteousness" 


VII.     PRAYER   IN   CHRIST. 


* 


9Jf  pe  afcibe  in  me,  anb  mp 
auibe  in  pou,  pe  gfjail  a£ft  tofjat 
anb  it  £tjall  be  bone  unto  pou. 


unto  pou, 

goetoer  pe  jasfjafl  a^ffe  tfjc  f  atljcr  in  mp 
name,  l)c  luill  gilJc  it  pou* 

John  xvi.  23. 

9 


VII. 

PRAYER  IN  CHRIST. 

|MONG  the  richest  privileges  growing 
out  of  that  divine  union  on  which 
we  have  been  meditating  is  that  of 
prayer  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  Indeed,  it  is  at 
once  the  most  precious  fruit  of  the  Believer's 
life  in  Christ  and  the  most  powerful  nourisher 
of  that  life  —  that  by  which  it  both  holds  and 
is  held. 

And  yet  it  may  be  questioned  whether  to 
the  mass  of  Christians  the  deepest  thought  of 
that  thrice  repeated  promise  of  our  Lord, 
"Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Whatsoever 
ye  shall  ask  the  Father  in  my  name,  He  will 
give  it  you," J  is  not  a  hidden  thought  — 
namely,  that  asking  in  the  name  of  Christ  is 
asking  in  union  with  the  Person  of  Christ? 

One  common  apprehension  of  the  matter  is 
certainly  true,  that  the  Christian  is  permitted 

1  John  xvi.  23.  *  Note  J. 


IN  CHRIST. 

to  use  the  credit  of  that  "  name  which  is  above 
every  name  "  in  making  his  request  to  God. 
And  this  is  indeed  an  inestimable  privilege. 
For  we  know  even  in  human  relations  how 
much  of  one's  personal  qualities  and  attri- 
butes his  name  carries  with  it  ;  how  that  he 
who  is  permitted  to  use  his  patron's  name  is 
thereby  to  a  certain  extent  invested  with  that 
patron's  character,  so  that  whatever  commer- 
cial or  moral  value  belongs  to  it  is  for  the 
time  made  over  to  him  and  becomes  a  per- 
sonal possession.  But  another  quite  as  com- 
mon view  of  the  matter  is  certainly  not  true, 
that  any  request,  whatever  its  nature,  needs 
only  to  have  the  words  "  for  Christ's  sake  " 
attached  to  it  to  ensure  an  answer.  Nay  ! 
To  pray  in  Christ's  name  is  not  to  use  his 
name  as  a  charm  or  talisman  simply,  as 
though  the  bare  repetition  of  it  were  all  that 
is  required  to  open  the  treasures  of  infinite 
grace.  Let  us  not  degrade  this  dearest 
promise  of  our  Lord  into  such  a  superstition 
as  that.  The  Jewish  cabalists  believed  that 
the  pronunciation  of  certain  magical  words 
engraved  on  the  seal  of  Solomon  would  per- 
form miracles.  That  was  incantation.  And 
we  in  like  manner  make  Christian  incantation 


IN  CHRIST.  137 

of  this  sublimest  privilege  of  the  Gospel  if 
we  put  such  an  interpretation  as  this  upon 
Christ's  words. 

The  name  of  Christ  stands  for  Christ  Him- 
self. And  to  pray  in  the  name  of  Christ  is 
to  pray  in  Christ,  in  the  mind  and  spirit  and 
will  of  Christ.  "  If  ye  abide  in  me,  and  my 
ivords  abide  in  yon,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will, 
and  it  shall  be  done  unto  yon"  * 

To  repeat  a  holy  name  is  an  easy  thing ; 
but  to  attain  that  holy  abiding  in  which  there 
is  such  a  perfect  community  of  life  with  our 
true  Vine,  that  it  is  as  impossible  for  us  to 
ask  amiss  as  for  the  branch  of  the  fig-tree  to 
put  forth  the  buds  and  flowers  of  the  thorn, 
is,  as  we  all  confess,  to  reach  the  very  highest 
ideal  of  discipleship.  And  yet  on  nothing 
short  of  this  perfectness  of  union  with  our 
Lord  has  He  predicated  an  unrestricted  ac- 
cess to  the  treasuries  of  divine  blessing.  The 
same  condition  is  affixed  to  each  of  the  high- 
est and  most  longed-for  attainments  of  the 
Christian  life — sinlessness,2  fruitfulness,3  and 
prevalence  in  prayer ;  namely,  "  If  ye  abide  in 
me"  Our  desires,  like  the  bud  upon  the  tree, 
are  the  most  concrete  and  perfect  expression 

J  John  xv.  7.        *  I  John  iii.  6.         •  John  xv.  5. 


138  IN  CHRIST. 

of  ourselves.  Just  to  the  degree  in  which  we 
are  living  in  the  flesh  shall  we  be  gendering 
"  the  desires  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  mind," 
bringing  them  to  God  in  our  prayers,  and  ful- 
filling them  in  our  lives.  Just  to  the  degree 
in  which  we  realize  that  blessed  state,  "  I  live, 
yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me"  will  the 
desires  of  the  Spirit  be  forming  within  us,  — 
unfolding  in  prayers  that  are  "  unto  God  a 
sweet  savor  of  Christ,"  and  maturing  into 
the  fruits  of  righteousness  and  true  holiness. 
No  mere  selfish  and  earth-born  desire  can  be 
endued  with  power,  simply  by  being  christened 
with  that  holy  name.  Nor  can  any  long- 
ing towards  God  which  has  been  truly  be- 
gotten by  the  Spirit  fail  because  the  formula, 
11  for  Christ's  sake"  may  be  wanting  in  its  ut- 
terance. The-  secret  of  the  Lord  lies  deeper 
than  this  —  even  in  that  full  intimate  fellow- 
ship with  Jesus  wherein  our  wills  are  per- 
fectly accordant  with  his  will  as  touching  the 
thing  we  ask,  and  our  desires  an  impulse  of 
his  holy  mind.1  The  circuit  of  grace  is  com- 
plete and  unobstructed  between  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Spirit.  If  we  wholly  abide 
in  Christ  we  get  into  its  open  and  ever  free 

i  Note  K. 


IN  CHRIST.  139 

currents,  where  all  things  are  possible  to  us 
who  believe,  because  all  things  are  possible 
with  God,  with  whom  we  are  thus  brought 
into  full  accord. 

Has  not  a  wide-spread  skepticism  grown 
up  among  Christians  concerning  the  literal- 
ness  of  this  great  promise,  "  Whatsoever  ye 
shall  ask  "  —  a  limiting  of  God's  faithfulness 
in  giving,  through  an  ignoring  of  that  constant 
limitation  to  our  receiving,  namely,  our  want 
of  unbroken  communion  with  Christ  ? 

It  is  indeed  a  promise  wonderful  in  its 
breadth :  "  If  ye  shall  ask  anything  in  my 
name,  I  will  do  it."  l  But  because  none  may 
have  ever  fully  measured  it  in  human  experi- 
ence, shall  it  therefore  be  narrowed  or  condi- 
tioned as  a  divine  possibility  ?  "  Prayer,"  it 
has  been  said,  "  is  so  mighty  an  instrument 
that  no  one  ever  yet  mastered  all  its  keys. 
They  sweep  along  the  infinite  scale  of  man's 
wants  and  God's  goodness."  And  yet  to  be 
the  perfect  servant  of  Christ's  will  is  to  be  the 
perfect  master  of  prayer.  To  the  touch  of 
that  will  all  its  majestic  octaves  respond.  "  I 
know  that  Thou  hearest  me  always."  2  And 
if  we  attune  our  wills  perfectly  to  this  divine 

1  John  xiv.  14.  *  John  xi.  42. 


I4O  IN  CHRIST. 

will,  how  shall  not  the  Father  with  Him 
freely  grve  us  all  things  !  The  answer  to 
prayer  then  is  not  contingent  on  the  great- 
ness or  the  smallness  of  the  requests  it  con- 
tains, but  upon  the  impulse  which  prompts 
them.  If  that  impulse  proceed  from  our  own 
will,  the  prayer  is  not  in  the  name  of  Christ, 
though  it  relate  to  his  kingdom.  For  even 
so  great  a  request  as  the  glory  of  God  may 
be  made  from  a  selfish  motive.  But  when 
the  incitement  to  prayer  is  derived  from  an 
inward  divine  operation,  it  is  truly  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord,  and  must  have  its  answer. 
For  it  is  then  the  effectual  inwrougJit  prayer 
that  availeth  much. 

Does  this  view  suggest  the  question,  What 
need  then  of  prayer,  since  its  limits  are  so 
circumscribed  that  to  be  genuine  it  must  only 
be  the  expression  of  what  God  worketh  in  us 
to  will  and  to  desire  ?  A  question  which 
may  be  answered  by  two  others.  First,  Does 
the  devout  mind  desire  any  larger  range  for 
its  petitions  than  the  circle  of  the  perfectly 
wise  and  perfectly  beneficent  will  of  God  ? 
To  know  that  our  Lord  had  put  into  our 
hands  a  key  which  was  entirely  within  the 
control  of  our  blind,  imperfect,  erring  wills, 


IN  CHRIST.  141 

were  to  know  our  constant  peril  of  opening 
for  ourselves  some  door  of  certain  destruction. 
Hence  ought  it  not  to  be  a  ground  of  the 
deepest  comfort  and  security  to  the  suppliant 
praying  in  the  spirit  of  adoption,  that  he  has  a 
Father  who  not  only  will  not  give  him  a  stone 
when  he  asks  for  bread,  but  will  not  give  him 
a  stone  when  lie  asks  for  a  stone?  And,  sec- 
ondly, need  it  follow  that  the  complete  sub- 
jection of  our  will  to  Christ's  is  also  a  surren- 
der of  our  freedom  of  petition  ?  "  Ask,  and  ye 
shall  receive,"  is  no  less  a  command  than  that 
other,  "  Submit  yourselves  therefore  to  God." 
Prayer  is  the  working  of  a  will  that  is  free, 
within  a  will  that  is  sovereign.  That  the  less 
must  be  obedient  to  the  greater  in  making  its 
requests,  no  more  argues  a  yielding  up  its 
freedom,  than  that  the  greater  will  be  moved 
by  the  less  to  answer  those  requests  argues  a 
yielding  up  of  its  sovereignty.  Not  only  is 
there  no  infringement  on  the  believer's  spirit- 
ual liberty  in  the  requirement  that  he  ask  in 
holy  subjection  to  the  will  of  his  Lord,  but  on 
the  contrary  there  is,  as  one  has  said,  no  other 
such  witness  to  that  liberty  "  as  is  wrapped  up 
in  prayer,  man's  permitted  though  submitted 


142  IN  CHRIST. 

•wish  and  will  and  choice" *  respecting  all  that 
pertains  to  his  destiny. 

But  let  us  not  forget  that  the  necessity  of  a 
submitted  will  in  prayer  rests  on  something 
deeper  than  itself,  even  on  the  great  sacrifice 
which  is  the  groundwork  of  all  devotion.  As  in 
justifying  faith  the  soul  is  brought  into  union 
with  Christ  crucified  and  risen,  so  in  inter- 
cessory faith  it  abides  in  this  union.  And 
because  our  great  High  Priest  can  never  for- 
get his  cross  and  his  blood,  we  may  not.  We 
may  come  with  the  utmost  boldness  to  the 
throne  of  grace  as  being  in  Him  who  "  ever 
liveth  to  make  intercession  for  us,"  but  we 
shall  come  also  with  entire  self-surrender  as 
being  in  Him  "that  liveth  and  zvas  dead? 
And  because  we  are  "deadw/z///:  Him"  we 
shall  be  careful  to  bring  that  only  required 
sacrifice  of  the  Christian  covenant,  a  crucified 
will.  This  is  vital.  "  Good  prayers  never 
come  weeping  home,"  says  Bishop  Hall,  — 
which  is  certainly  true  of  such  prayers  as 
have  gone  to  heaven  "  by  way  of  weeping 

1  See  the  thoughtful  essay  on  Prayer  considered  in  its 
Relation  to  the  Will  of  Man  and  in  its  Dependence  on  tht 
Sacrifice  of  C/ir:sfs  Death,  by  Dora  Greenwell,  to  whom  I 
am  indebted  for  I  know  not  how  many  suggestions  ol  truth. 


rtf  CHRIST.  143 

cross."  But  are  not  many  prayers  put  up  in 
which  there  is  no  tender,  tearful  remembrance 
of  that  sacrificial  woe  which  bought  for  us 
the  right  to  pray  in  Christ,  —  and  yet  prayers 
pleaded  in  his  name  "  who  in  the  days  of  his 
flesh  offered  up  prayers  and  supplications  with 
strong  crying  and  tears  unto  Him  that  was 
able  to  save  him  from  death," l  each  time  say- 
ing the  same  words,  "  Not  my  will,  but  thine, 
be  done " ? 

Because  we  can  nowhere  else  deal  with 
God  through  the  atonement  without  a  sub- 
mitted will,  we  cannot  here.  Saving  faith  is 
at  once  a  surrender  of  self,  and  an  appropria- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ.  And  interceding  faith  is 
like  it,  —  a  hearty,  aye,  vehement  yielding  up 
of  the  will  to  God  while  laying  hold  of  his 
all  perfect  will.  Here  we  touch  the  secret  of 
assurance.  "  And  this  is  the  confidence  that 
we  have  in  Him,  that,  if  we  ask  anything  ac- 
cording to  his  will,  He  heareth  us."  Outward 
diversions  may  break  the  reverential  intimacy 
of  our  communion  with  Him  ;  the  chill  of 
worldliness  may  cool  the  pulse  of  fervent 
desire  :  but  if  the  will  yet  moves  needle-like 
to  the  one  blessed  point,  the  holy  will  of  Jesus, 
»  Heb.  v.  7. 


144  IN  CHRIST. 

and  rests  there,  the  deepest  condition  of  pre- 
vailing prayer  is  realized. 

If  the  conditions  of  prayer  in  Christ  are 
thus  profound  and  exacting,  the  blessing  and 
privilege  are  inexpressibly  glorious.  To  have 
Christ  dwelling  in  us,  his  will  encircling  ours 
with  its  holy  constraints,  and  his  heart  within 
us  the  fountain  of  all  blessed  desires,  do  we 
count  this  a  rich  prerogative  of  the  gospel  ? 
What  shall  we  say  then  of  that  grace  where- 
unto  we  are  called,  of  being  so  in  Christ  that 
his  influence  with  the  Father  passes  over 
upon  us  ;  so  that  "  wJien  we  offer  our  prayers 
through  his  mediation  it  is  He  that  prays,  his 
love  that  intercedes,  his  blood  that  pleads,  it  is 
He  who  obtains  all  from  his  Father"  1 

There  is  something  more  for  us  now  than 
the  proxy  of  faith,  —  the  standing  afar  off  with 
no  ray  of  divine  approval  falling  upon  us,  and 
asking  blessings  for  Jesus'  sake.  Lest  we 
should  think  of  the  matter  thus,  our  Lord  de- 
clares with  exquisite  grace  and  tenderness,  "  I 
say  not  unto  you  that  I  will  pray  the  Father 
for  you,  for  the  Father  Himself  loveth  you  be- 
cause ye  have  loved  me,  and  have  believed 
that  I  came  out  from  God."  2  One  with  Jesus 

1  Bishop  Wilson's  Sacra  Priuata.  2  John  xvL  27. 


IN  CHRIST.  145 

the  Mediator,  and  endeared  to  the  Father's 
heart  by  all  that  makes  Him  dear,  we  come 
no  longer  to  the  throne  as  beggars  asking 
alms,  but  as  sons  seeking  an  inheritance. 
We  cannot  be  ashamed  now,  that  wait  upon 
the  Lord,  for  the  glorified  Son  has  said,  "  The 
glory  wJiich  Thou  gavcst  me  I  have  given 
them"  We  cannot  be  afraid  before  Him  now, 
for  the  ever  Beloved  One  has  said,  "  Thou  Iiast 
loved  them  as  Thou  hast  loved  me"  We  cannot 
doubt  that  we  have  the  petitions  that  we  ask 
now,  for  being  "  in  Christ  Jesus  who  of  God 
is  made  unto  us  righteousness"  how  can  we 
fail  to  receive  the  promise,  "  The  effectual 
fervent  prayer  of  a  righteous  man  availeth 
much  "  ? *  Perhaps  in  the  presence  of  such  a 
revelation  as  this,  our  greatest  need  of  prayer 
may  be  to  ask  that  we  may  not  "  stagger 
at  the  promise  of  God  through  unbelief." 
One  who  has  looked  deeply  into  this  theme 
writes  :  "  A  poor  sinner  permitted  to  approach 
the  Father  in  all  his  troubles  as  though  he 
were  Christ.  If  one  were  internally  awake  he 
would  not  know  how  to  bear  himself  for  joy 
and  amazement  at  the  grant  of  such  a  privi- 
lege." 2 

1  James  v.  16.  *  Krummacher. 

10 


146  IN  CHRIST. 

And  yet,  in  the  tmfoldings  of  Redemption 
from  Christ  crucified  to  Christ  glorified,  this 
blessing  and  mystery  only  deepens  more  and 
more.  The  "  no  more  conscience  of  sins " 
which  we  get  while  standing  before  the  cross, 
is  followed  by  the  entering  into  the  Holy 
Place  with  Christ  after  the  veil  of  his  flesh 
has  been  parted.  His  Priesthood  consum- 
mates what  his  blood  has  purchased.  Into 
the  Holiest,1  whither  the  High  Priest  could 
go  only  once  a  year,  and  then  with  the  deep- 
est awe,  the  humblest  believer  may  now  enter 
"  boldly  "  by  his  oneness  with  his  Lord.  And 
where  Aaron  never  sat  down,  there  he  is 
"made  to  sit  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ 
Jesus."  2  If  a  sense  of  his  deep  unworthiness 
before  God  often  leads  him  to  take  up  the 
cry,  "  Hide  not  thy  face  from  thy  servant," 
the  Spirit,  by  convincing  of  the  righteous- 
ness of  Christ,  immediately  reassures  him. 
If  there  is  no  veil  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son  in  glory,  how  can  there  be  any  be- 
tween the  Father  and  those  who  are  in  the 
Son.  As  He  is,  so  are  they.  His  righteous- 
ness is  their  priestly  vesture.  He  is  the 
"  Holiness  unto  the  Lord "  inscribed  upon 
i  Heb.  x.  19.  2  Eph.  ii.  6. 


IN  CHRIST.  147 

their  frontlet.  His  promises  are  the  golden 
bells  that  vibrate  about  their  garments  as 
they  enter  in  unto  God.  Blessed  are  they 
who  know  their  privilege  in  Him.  Thrice 
blessed  they  who  faithfully  use  it  ;  daily 
"putting  on  the  royal  apparel  and  standing 
in  the  inner  court  of  the  Kings  house" l 
assured  of  the  outstretched  sceptre  and  the 
gracious  promise,  "  What  is  thy  petition  ? 
and  it  shall  be  granted  thee  ;  and  what  is 
thy  request  ?  it  shall  be  performed." 

Thus  is  prayer  in  its  deepest  significance  a 
communion  with  the  Father  through  commun- 
ion with  the  Son.2  Abiding  in  Christ  we  get 
the  spirit  of  supplication  —  the  blessing  of 
"a  mind  clot  lied  with  inward  prayer"  His 
words  abiding  in  us  both  fix  the  direction  of 
our  petitions  and  bring,  how  often  !  that  an- 
swer which  God  has  promised  to  suppliants 
"  while  they  are  yet  speaking."  Abiding  in 
Him  we  have  his  mind  as  our  guide  in  inter- 
cession, so  that  if  our  desires  be  left  uncon- 
strained it  will  bend  them  to  seek  our  high- 
est blessing,  as  the  diviner's  rod,  held  in  the 
unresisting  hand,  is  bent  to  the  cool  sweet 
water-courses  that  flow  invisibly  beneath 
1  Esther  v.  »  Note  L. 


148  IN  CHRIST 

the  earth.  In  Him,  we  are  clothed  with  the 
righteousness  which  constitutes  in  the  econ- 
omy of  grace  not  only  our  right  of  petition  but 
our  claim  to  be  heard,  so  that  as  we  appear 
in  it  before  the  mercy-seat  we  may  urge  in 
triumphant  humility  God's  oath  and  faithful- 
ness, —  "  Have  respect  unto  the  Covenant" 

If  now  our  privileges  are  the  measure  of  our 
duties,  can  we  set  any  bounds  to  our  obliga- 
tion of  Christian  prayer  ?  Where  God's  will 
is  clearly  revealed  to  us,  as,  e.  g.,  concerning 
our  personal  holiness,  "  This  is  the  will  of 
God  even  your  sanctification,"  the  duty  can 
be  nothing  less  surely  than  to  "  pray  without 
ceasing."  And  the  assurance  of  an  answer 
can  be  nothing  less  than  to  know,  without 
questioning,  that  what  we  ask  we  shall  re- 
ceive. 

In  other  matters,  among  the  obscure  and 
unrevealed  decrees  of  Providence,  if  our  as- 
surance must  be  less  specific,  our  supplica- 
tion must  not  be  less  intense  in  searching  for 
God's  will,  that  when  we  have  found  it  we 
may  take  it  up  and  urge  it  with  all  the  en- 
ergy of  a  renewed  and  privileged  soul.  It  is 
in  constant  asking  that  we  learn  how  and 
what  to  ask.  The  soul,  looking  steadfastly 


IN  CHRIST.  149 

into  the  Father's  face,  comes  at  last  to  read 
his  thoughts  after  Him  ;  to  catch,  as  by  a 
divine  intuition,  the  indications  of  his  will. 
"  /  will  guide  tJiee  with  mine  eye?  1  With  his 
word  in  our  hands  and  his  spirit  in  our  hearts 
and  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  his  glory 
shining  upon  us  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ, 
surely  we  ought  not  to  need  the  bit  and  bridle 
of  violent  providences  to  restrain  us  from 
willful  and  headstrong  prayers,  much  less  the 
scourge  of  terrible  chastisement  to  drive  us 
to  pray  at  all. 

So  let  us  enter  into  the  fullness  of  our 
blessing  in  Christ.  Knowing  that  praying  in 
the  name  of  Christ  is  "  praying  in  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  the  sole  and  blessed  medium  of  a 
common  life  between  the  saint  and  his  Sav- 
iour, and  that  praying  in  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
having  the  Spirit  to  "  help  our  infirmities,"  a 
since  "  we  know  not  what  to  pray  for  as  we 
ought  ;  "  and  to  make  intercession  for  us  "  ac- 
cording to  the  will  of  God"  how  intently  shall 
we  seek  to  learn  the  highest  use  of  that  di- 
vine name  by  entering  into  the  deepest  com- 
munion with  that  divine  Person.  And  with 
what  earnestness  and  strength  of  desire  may 

*  Ps.  xxxiL  8,  9.  *  Rom.  viii.  26,  27. 


I5O  IN  CHRIST. 

we  constantly  plead  that  prayer  of  Vinet : 
"  O  God,  unite  more  and  more  closely,  not  our 
spirit  to  a  name  but  our  soul  to  a  soul ;  to 
the  soul  of  Jesus  Christ  thy  Son  and  the 
Son  of  man,  our  God,  our  Brother.  In  this 
intimate  and  living  union  may  this  soul  grad- 
ually become  our  soul,  and  may  we  learn  of 
Him  by  virtue  of  living  with  Him,  to  love  as 
He  loved,  to  bless  as  He  blessed,  and  to  pray 
as  He  prayed."  Amen. 


VIII.    COMMUNION  IN  CHRIST. 


$e  ttjat  eatctf)  mp  flc$),  anti  drmuetf) 
mp  blood,  dtudlctl)  in  me,  and  3(  in 
jjim*  7*//»  vi.  56. 


t^c  lining  father  Ijatj)  £cnt  me, 
anti  31  Ji^c  i»P  tj)c  father  :  ^o  &e  that 
ratcti)  me  ^Ijali  iifce  by  me. 

vi.  57. 


Slfcitic  in  me,  anti  3!  in  jiou  ;  a^  tlje 
fnrancl)  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself  cx*rc»t 
it  abide  in  tjjc  Vjinc  ;  no  more  ran  pe 
except  pe  abide  in  me.  John  xv.  4. 


VIII. 
COMMUNION  IN  CHRIST. 

be  one  with  the  Lord  Jesus  is  to  be 
one  with  "  Him  winch  is,  and  which 
was,  and  which  is  to  come." 1  Of  that 
threefold  cord  of  our  union  with  Him  then, 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity,  no  part  can  be 
spared,  but  in  order  to  unbroken  communion 
each  alike  must  be  strengthened  and  nour- 
ished :  Faith,  that  links  us  to  Him  which  was, 
and  Love,  that  links  us  to  Him  which  is,  and 
Hope,  that  links  us  to  Him  which  is  to  come. 
And  can  we  fail  to  note  the  careful  em- 
phasis which  the  sacraments  lay  upon  each 
of  these  relations  ?  Baptism,  the  sacrament 
of  union  with  Christ,  declares  by  one  com- 
prehensive symbol  our  partnership  in  his 
sacrificial  death,  and  in  his  risen  life,  and 
in  his  coming  glory.  The  Supper,  the  sacra- 
ment of  communion  with  Christ,  exhibits  the 
1  Rev.  i.  4. 


154  IN  CHRIST. 

same  truths  in  perpetual  rfeumt.  And  so 
at  each  communing  we  traverse  the  whole 
extent  of  the  redemption,  and  are  joined 
in  equal  fellowship  to  every  part  of  his  life 
who,  from  being  the  /  Am  of  Eternity,  has 
by  his  incarnation  conjugated  his  existence, 
if  we  may  say  so,  to  our  human  terms  of  was 
and  is  and  is  to  come. 

Thus,  in  the  breaking  of  the  bread  and 
the  pouring  out  of  the  wine,  we  have  the  suf- 
fering Christ  presented  to  us  ;  and  entering 
by  a  uniting  faith  into  fellowship  with  his  suf- 
ferings, we  can  say  anew,  "  I  have  been  cruci- 
fied with  Christ."  In  the  separation  of  the 
elements,  the  blood,  in  which  is  the  life,  from 
the  body  which  it  animates  and  vivifies,  we 
are  reminded  that  death  has  taken  place. 
And  thus  we  behold  the  dead  Christ.  But 
an  eager  faith  has  only  time  to  pronounce 
its  confession,  "  If  we  be  dead  with  Him," 
before  the  commemoration  has  become  a 
feast.  The  emblems  of  suffering  and  death 
are  eaten,  and  being  assimilated  with  our 
bodies  become  life-giving ;  and  now  we  real- 
ize the  risen  Christ,  and  own  ourselves  "  alive 
with  Him  from  the  dead."  But  while  love  is 
exulting  in  a  present  Lord,  his  words  are  heard 


IN  CHRIST,  155 

kindling  hope,  and  leading  us  onward  to  yet 
greater  blessing.  "  Whoso  eateth  my  flesh 
and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal  life,  and 
I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day"  Thus  by 
a  single  sacrament  we  are  carried  back  to  the 
cross  and  sepulchre  ;  thence  onward  to  join 
our  risen  Lord,  and  be  quickened  by  the 
mighty  pulse  of  his  glorified  life,  and  thence 
forward  still  to  the  redemption  of  our  bodies 
at  his  coming.  The  Memorial  of  Faith  has 
passed  into  a  Feast  of  Love,  and  the  Feast  of 
Love  into  a  Prophecy  of  Hope. 

It'  is  obvious  then  that  the  ordinance  of  the 
Supper  was  designed  to  be  a  perpetual  tie  for 
binding  together  the  two  great  parts  of  Re- 
demption lying  respectively  in  the  first  and 
in  the  second  advents  of  our  Lord.  "  This 
do  in  remembrance  of  me.  For  as  often  as 
ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  this  cup,  ye  do 
show  forth  the  Lord's  death  till  He  come"  J 
And  as  partaken  by  the  believer  it  realizes 
and  confirms  his  union  with  his  Lord  alike  in 

1  I  Cor.  xi.  26. 

The  rite  was  not  a  memorial  of  death  simply,  but  of  death 
conquered  by  life.  The  seal  of  the  efficacy  of  the  death  of 
Christ  was  given  in  the  Resurrection  ;  and  the  limit  of  the 
Commemoration  of  his  Passion  was  looked  for  in  his  Re- 
turn. —  Wtstiott. 


156  IN  CHRIST. 

both.  The  soul  being  nourished  by  spiritual 
bread,  exults  anew  in  its  redemption  from 
the  curse  ;  and  the  body  revived  by  material 
bread,  receives  a  sensible  foretoken  of  its  re- 
demption from  the  grave.  And  so,  as  having 
died  in  Christ,  and  as  being  alive  in  Christ, 
and  as  to  be  raised  up  with  Christ,  the  com- 
municant holds  fellowship  with  every  element 
of  his  redeeming  work  who  saith  :  "  I  am  He 
that  liveth  and  was  dead  ;  and  behold  I  am 
alive  forevermore,  and  have  the  keys  of  death 
and  of  the  grave."  1 

But  is  it  not  possible  now  that  through  a 
recoil  from  the  Romish  error  of  the  real  pres- 
ence on  the  one  hand,  and  through  that  slum- 
ber respecting  her  blessed  hope  into  which 
the  Church  has  fallen  while  the  Bridegroom 
has  tarried,  on  the  other,  we  have  well-nigh 
shut  ourselves  up  to  a  single  office  of  the  Sup- 
per, the  memorial  ?  This  were  enough  in- 
deed, were  there  no  other.  To  cherish  a  holy 
keepsake  from  our  ascended  Lord,  and  to  re- 
count, if  only  by  a  "  lifeless  mnemonic"  as  the 
Protestant  communion  has  been  disparagingly 
called,  the  scenes  of  his  bitter  agony  and 
death,  were  a  most  worthy  service. 
1  Rev.  i.  1 8. 


TN  CHRIST.  157 

But  still  we  do  not  forget  that  memory  is 
but  a  servant  of  love,  given  to  minister,  and 
not  to  be  ministered  unto  ;  and  that  in  its 
tireless  excursions  to  the  cross  and  garden,  it 
is  only  gathering  food  for  communion  with 
the  present,  living  Christ.  In  that  deep  abid- 
ing in  the  vine  on  which  our  life  depends,  it  is 
given  us  to  hold  fellowship  both  with  the  root 
that  twines  itself  about  the  cross,  and  with  the 
tendrils  that  stretch  upward  into  glory,  that 
we  may  draw  through  both  the  nutriment  of 
present  life  and  growth.  And  the  evidence 
of  area!  interior  union  with  the  Lord  is  found 
in  the  constant  flowing  into  us  of  the  life  that 
is  in  Him  and  the  death  which  He  died. 

To  this  end  was  the  Supper  ordained. 

The  bread,  in  reminding  us  of  Christ's 
wounded  body,  becomes  a  bread  of  sacrifice  for 
feeding  in  us  the  spirit  of  self-denial.  "  The 
bread  which  we  break,  is  it  not  the  commun- 
ion of  the  body  of  Christ,"  even  of  his  dying 
body,  through  partaking  of  which  we  are  made 
strong  to  "  bear  about  in  our  body  the  dying 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  "  ?  But  as  a  symbol  of 
present  nourishment  it  is  none  the  less  the 
bread  of  life  for  feeding  our  spiritual  hunger, 
"  that  the  life  also  of  Jesus  might  be  made 
manifest  in  our  body." 


158  IN  CHRIST. 

And  the  wine,  as  the  memorial  of  that  blood 
by  which  we  are  redeemed,  is  the  cup  of  suf- 
fering with  Christ.  "The  cup  of  blessing 
which  we  bless,  is  it  not  the  communion  of  the 
blood  of  Christ,"  even  of  that  blood  of  sacrifice 
which  pledges  us  as  we  drink  it  to  the  martyr- 
dom of  daily  dying  with  Christ  ?  But  as  the 
synonym  of  life,  this  blood  is  not  less  truly 
also  the  pledge  of  our  kindredship  with  Jesus 
in  glory,  the  quickener  and  nourisher  of  that 
divine  nature  which  we  share  with  Him. 

And  these  elements,  eaten  and  assimilated, 
become  the  aliment  of  that  twofold  growth 
in  which  our  sanctification  consists — the 
growth  from  life  to  life  in  the  new  man,  and 
the  growth  from  death  to  death  in  the  old  man. 

Is  there  then  a  real  communication  of  Christ 
to  the  believer  through  the  sacrament  ?  Even 
as  there  is  through  the  word  when  appropri- 
ated by  faith. 

"  1  am  the  Life"  says  Jesus.  Here  Christ 
offers  Himself  to  us  in  the  symbols  of  human 
language,  in  the  sacrament  of  the  inspired 
letter.  " He  that  believtth  on  me  hath  life" 
The  eye  sees  or  the  ear  hears  the  word,  and 
faith  that  "  cometh  by  hearing,"  feeds  upon 
the  spirit  and  the  life  which  it  conveys,  and 


IN  CHRIST.  159 

Christ  is  received  into  the  soul.  Thus  through 
the  medium  of  faith  that  union  is  begotten 
whereby  Christ  dwelleth  in  us  and  we  in 
Him.1 

But  the  Supper  is  only  the  same  communi- 
cation made  in  larger  letters,  embodied  in  a 
vivid  sign  language  which  addresses  all  the 
senses  as  the  word  addresses  two.  It  is  still 
faith  and  faith  alone  that  eats  of  Christ,  ap- 
prehending the  invisible  through  the  visible, 
the  spirit  through  the  letter ;  and  so  that 
union  is  realized  and  confirmed,  —  "  He  that 
eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  dwell- 
eth in  me  and  I  in  him."  Whether  then  we 
speak  of  that  first  partaking  of  Christ  by 
which  the  divine  life  begins  in  us,  or  of  that 
repeated  partaking  by  which  it  is  perpetu- 
ated, it  is  faith,  the  mouth  of  the  soul — 
apprehending  by  some  human  sense  or  senses, 
that  receives  Him  ;  it  is  the  Holy  Spirit  — 
"  the  Agent  of  love,  of  union,  and  of  life  which 
consummates  itself  through  union"  —  com- 
municating through  some  human  sign  or 
signs,  that  imparts  Him. 

If  all  this  were  real  to  us,  would  not  our 
communions  be  more  fruitful  of  spiritual 

1  I  John  iii.  24. 


l6o  IN  CHRIST. 

growth  and  blessing  than  they  are  ?  They 
would  not  be  solely  memorial.  Faith  would 
bring  from  the  cross  that  uniting  sorrow 
which  makes  us  one  with  a  present  though 
invisible  Redeemer.  Hope,  like  the  dove  sent 
forth  from  the  Ark,  would  fly  across  the  un- 
known future,  returning  with  its  "  Behold  I 
come  quickly,"  that  true  olive  token  of  the 
"  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  "  for  which 
we  wait.  And  both  Faith  and  Hope,  deepening 
our  intimacy  and  oneness  with  Christ,  would 
be  giving  us  that  only  preparation  for  his 
coming,  —  "  And  now,  little  children,  abide  in 
Him ;  that  when  He  shall  appear  we  may 
have  confidence  and  not  be  ashamed  before 
Him  at  his  coming." 

Perhaps  there  is  no  complaint  more  con- 
stantly made  among  Christians  than  that  of 
want  of  enjoyment  and  spiritual  refreshment 
from  the  communion. 

Is  the  fault  generally  that  they  eat  and 
drink  unworthily,  or  rather  that  having  par- 
taken in  faith,  they  do  not  imvardly  digest  the 
food  of  God  ?  If  prayer  and  watchfulness  and 
self-denial  are  not  active  to  assimilate  with  the 
daily  life  that  which  faith  has  taken  into  the 
soul,  there  can  of  course  be  little  profit  in  the 


IN  CHRIST.  l6l 

bare  sacrament.  The  fellowship  of  Christ's 
sufferings  cannot  be  realized  through  a  symbol 
received  with  the  mouth  merely,  nor  by  a  sin- 
gle apprehension  of  faith.  There  must  be  the 
prolonged  exercise  of  the  will  in  acts  of  self- 
surrender  and  sacrifice.  Our  cup  can  never 
be  so  bitter  as  our  Lord's,  but  it  must  be  the 
same  in  kind  as  that  which  He  drank  in  the 
garden  when  in  agony  and  bloody  sweat  He 
thrice  yielded  up  his  will  to  his  Father.  To 
take  the  cup  from  the  table  of  the  Lord  and 
drink  it,  is  but  a  small  thing  of  itself;  to  carry 
out  what  we  pledge  in  the  act,  in  a  continued 
taking  of  our  Lord's  will  into  our  daily  life, 
obeying  joyfully  its  requirements  and  tasting 
with  the  same  alacrity  its  sweetness  and  its 
severity,  this  is  indeed  to  drink  his  cup. 

And  the  bread  of  life  is  received  after  the 
same  manner.  "  My  meat,"  said  Jesus,  "  is  to 
do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  me"  Can  ours 
be  anything  different  ?  Can  the  mere  sym- 
bol of  the  broken  loaf  nourish  us,  if  there  be 
in  us  no  corresponding  brokenness  of  the 
fleshly  mind  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  God  ? 
Nay,  as  Christ  fed  upon  the  Father  by  doing 
his  will,  we  must  in  like  manner  feed  upon  the 
Son  by  doing  his.  "As  the  living  Father 


1 62  IN  CHRIST. 

hath  sent  me,  and  I  live  by  the  Father,  so  he 
that  eateth  me,  even  he  shall  live  by  me." 

So  long  as  the  emblems  are  looked  upon  as 
literal  food,  as  by  the  Romanist,  the  Christian 
life  will  consist  mostly  in  dead  forms  and  cer- 
emonies, with  very  little  reference  to  the  in- 
ward consecration  of  the  mind  and  will.  For 
"  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,"  even 
though  it  be  consecrated  bread,  "  but  by  every 
word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  month  of  God" 
Obedience  after  faith,  is  the  great  principle  of 
union,  of  love,  and  of  growth.  In  this  is  the 
true  community  of  life  between  the  Head  and 
the  members.  "  If  ye  keep  my  commandments 
ye  shall  abide  in  my  love,  even  as  I  have  kept 
my  Father's  commandments  and  abide  in  his 
love." 

So  long,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  Protest- 
ants look  upon  the  elements  as  only  shad- 
ows of  Christ's  sacrifice,  to  be  contemplated 
by  faith,  without  also  seeing  in  them  the  pledge 
and  foreshadowing  of  a  sacrifice  in  us  to  be 
realized  by  daily  obedience  and  the  continual 
offering  up  of  ourselves  to  God,  we  shall  de- 
rive hardly  more  spiritual  benefit  from  the 
communion  than  the  Romanist. 

In   other   words,  just   as   concerning   the 


IN  CHRIST.  163 

spoken  word,  it  is  not  the  hearers  only  but 
the  doers  that  are  blessed  in  it ;  so  of  the 
sacramental  word  :  it  must  not  only  be  con- 
templated and  received,  but  it  must  abide  in 
us  in  order  to  be  real  food  to  us.  All  its  ele- 
ments, both  those  of  sacrifice  and  those  of  life, 
must  be  incorporated  with  our  deepest  spiritual 
nature,  and  so  ultimately  tell  upon  our  outward 
activity  as  really  and  as  perceptibly  as  the 
food  of  a  laborer  does  upon  his  daily  toil. 

If  the  Supper  is  thus  exacting  in  its  claims 
upon  our  will  and  service,  the  form  of  its  cel- 
ebration is  also  beautifully  suggestive  of  that 
rest  of  faith,  that  peaceful  abiding  in  the  Lord 
Jesus,  which  the  believer  enjoys.  It  is  the 
true  Passover,1  in  which  the  Lamb  without 
blemish  is  offered  in  symbol  as  the  food  of  his 
people.  But  not  like  the  first  Passover  is  it 
to  be  "  eaten  in  haste"  while  we  stand  with 
girded  loins  and  staff  in  hand.  We  that  be- 
lieve have  escaped  the  house  of  bondage. 
The  waters  of  our  burial  with  Christ  stand 
between  us  and  it  to  witness  to  our  separation 
from  its  curse.  We  now  sit  down  with  Christ, 
in  whom  is  no  condemnation.  He  is  our 
peace.  We  eat  the  bitter  herbs  of  mortifi- 
cation and  self-denial,  in  fellowship  with  his 

1  Luke  xxi.  13;  Exodus  xxii.  II. 


1 64  IN  CHRIST. 

death,  and  the  unleavened  bread  of  sincerity 
and  truth  in  communion  with  his  obedience  ; 
but  we  have  something  better  for  a  troubled 
conscience  and  a  trembling  faith  than  these. 
"  Christ  our  Passover  is  sacrificed  for  us."  His 
blood  sprinkled  on  the  lintels  of  our  hearts 
answers  every  accusation  of  God,  and  may  si- 
lence also  every  doubt  and  dark  misgiving  of 
our  souls.  Here  faith  rests  on  that  word  of 
God,  that  cannot  pass  away.  "  When  I  see  the 
blood,  I  will  pass  over  you."  And  one  with 
Christ  in  this  communion,  we  realize  our  one- 
ness with  all  saints,  and  call  upon  them  to 
help  us  comprehend  "  what  is  the  breadth  and 
length  and  height  and  depth,  and  to  know  the 
love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge."  For 
no  one  household  of  faith  can  take  in  the  whole 
Lamb)-  Each  needs  his  neighbor  in  the  king- 
dom and  fellowship  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  join  him 
for  the  perfect  communion  of  the  redeemed. 
Only  thus  can  we  "  grow  up  into  Him  in  all 
things  which  is  the  Head,  even  Christ ;  from 
whom  the  whole  body  fitly  joined  together 
and  compacted  by  that  which  every  joint  sup- 
plieth,  according  to  the  effectual  working  in 
the  measure  of  every  part,  maketh  increase  of 
the  body  unto  the  edifying  of  itself  in  love." 

1  Exodus  xii.  3,  4. 


IX.    SANCTIFICATION    IN 
CHRIST. 


tfjcm  tfjat  are  ganctificti  in 

I  Cor.  i.  2 


23ut  of  ^mi  arc  pc  in  Cjjri^t 

of  43oti  i^  maoe  unto  u^  .  .  .  . 
^amtification*  i  cor.  \.  30. 


no 
abioctg  in  Dim  g'innctlj  not. 

I  John  iii.  5,  6. 

^c  tfjat  abiDctfj  in  nit,  anb  3[  in  Ijim, 
tJjc  ^amc  bringctl)  fortlj  nutcf)  fruit* 

xv.  5. 


IX. 

SA-NCTIFICATION  IN  CHRIST. 

jHE  believer's  sanctification  is  at  once 
both  complete  and  incomplete.  As 
"  sanctified  in  Christ  Jesus"  and  em- 
braced in  his  comprehending  holiness,  he 
can  no  more  improve  this  grace  than  he  can 
add  lustre  to  a  sunbeam.  It  is  a  work  of 
God,  and  "  Whatsoever  God  doeth,  it  shall  be 
forever  :  nothing  can  be  put  to  it,  nor  anything 
taken  from  it."  l  As  fulfilling  in  himself  that 
sanctification  which  has  been  wrought  for 
him  in  Jesus  Christ,  this  grace  is  only  too 
painfully  partial  and  incomplete.  For  imper- 
fectness  is  as  characteristic  of  the  creature 
as  perfection  is  of  the  Creator. 

We  shall  be  little  likely  therefore  to  fall 
into  error  and  confusion  concerning  this  doc- 
trine if  we  keep  in  mind  the  distinction  be- 
tween what  we  are  as  "  his  workmanship  "  a 

1  Eccl.  iii.  14.  *  Eph.  ii.  10. 


1 68  IN  CHRIST. 

and  what  we  are  as  "  zvorkers  together  with 
Him"  1  As  the  first  we  are  not  only  "  cre- 
ated in  Christ  Jesus,"  but  "  created  in  right- 
eousness and  true  holiness''  2  Christ  and  his 
attributes  never  part  company,  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  be  made  in  Him  Without  being 
made  into  all  that  belongs  to  Him.  In  the 
same  transfiguration  of  faith  by  which  we  put 
on  the  Lord  Jesus,  do  we  put  on  his  raiment 
of  holiness,  "exceeding  white  as  snow,  so  as 
no  fuller  on  earth  can  white  it." 

This  may  seem  to  some  indeed  like  an  as- 
sumption perilous  to  our  humility.  But  do 
we  honor  God  most,  let  it  be  asked,  by  limit- 
ing his  grace  to  the  degree  of  our  worthiness 
and  capacity  ?  Is  Christ  best  pleased  that 
we  take  Him  piecemeal,  and  according  to  the 
narrow  measure  of  our  deserts,  when  He  has 
given  Himself  to  us  wholly  and  without  refer- 
ence to  our  deserts  ?  Nay,  we  have  no  more 
right  to  find  a  partial  sanctification  in  Christ 
than  we  have  to  find  a  partial  justification. 
Both  are  contained  in  the  same  Legacy  of 
love,  and  bequeathed  to  us  on  the  same  con- 
dition, simple  faith.  "  Of  Him  are  ye  in 
Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us 
wisdom  and  righteousness  and  sanctification 
1  2  Cor.  vi.  I.  a  Eph.  iv.  24. 


Iff  CHRIST.  169 

and  redemption,"  made  unto  us  all  these  in 
their  fullness,  and  not  some  of  them  and  par- 
tially as  we  can  receive  them,  —  unless  in- 
deed we  make  a  distinction,  which  would 
seem  ,1m natural,  between  the  manner  of  be- 
stowing righteousness  and  sanctification,  hold- 
ing that  the  one  is  immediately  imputed  and 
the  other  only  gradually  imparted.  Would  not 
the  truth  seem  to  be  rather,  that  both  are  im- 
puted to  faith  to  be  wrought  out  by  obedience 
and  holy  living  ?  —  God's  justifying  of  us  in 
Christ  being  more  and  more  realized  in  the 
answer  of  a  good  conscience  in  ourselves  ;  and 
his  sanctifying  or  setting  apart  of  us  in  Jesus 
being  more  and  more  fulfilled  in  our  own 
sanctification  or  separation  from  sin. 

And  it  is  because  we  can  thus  rest  on 
a  completed  work  in  Christ  that  we  have 
hope  to  go  on  unto  completeness  in  our- 
selves, "  to  apprehend  that  for  "which  we  are 
apprehended  of  Christ  Jesus?  Hence  also 
the  harmony  between  texts  that  have  seemed 
strangely  at  variance,  such  as,  "  Ye  are 
washed  and  ye  are  sanctified,"  against,  "  This 
is  the  will  of  God,  even  your  sanctifica- 
tion ; "  and,  "  For  by  one  offering  He  hath 
perfected  forever  them  that  are  sanctified," 


I/O  JN  CHRIST. 

against,  "  Let  us  go  on  unto  perfection."  In 
Christ  Jesus  all  contradictions  are  reconciled  ; 
the  things  that  are  incomplete,  and  the  things 
that  are  not,  becoming  the  things  that  are, 
and  the  things  that  are  complete.  As  a  gift 
of  grace,  then,  sanctification  is  conferred  on 
each  Christian  as  soon  as  he  believes.  But 
it  is  a  gift  yet  held  on  deposit,  if  we  may  say 
so,  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God,"  to  be  appro- 
priated through  daily  communion  and  gradual 
apprehension.  And  so,  while  the  believer's 
realized  sanctification  appears  painfully  mea- 
gre, at  most  a  thin  line  of  light,  like  the  cres- 
cent of  the  new  moon,  he  yet  sees  it  ever 
complemented  by  the  clear  outlines  of  that 
rounded  perfection  which  is  his  in  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  into  which  he  is  to  be  daily  waxing 
till  he  attains  to  "  the  measure  of  the  stature 
of  the  fullness  of  Christ."  Is  not  the  most 
fruitful  root  of  misconception  on  this  subject 
to  be  found  in  the  idea,  that  while  our  justifi- 
cation stands  wholly  in  Christ,  our  sanctifica- 
tion stands  in  ourselves  ?  As  though  it  were 
our  human  nature  that  is  to  be  improved  and 
brought  to  ultimate  perfection  !  One  surely 
could  never  harbor  such  an  error,  were  he 
mindful  of  that  form  of  doctrine  to  which  he 


IN  CHRIST.  171 

was  committed  in  baptism.  That  declared 
the  putting  off  and  burial  of  the  old  man,  and 
the  putting  on  of  the  new  man.  And  it  can- 
not be  that  this  forecast  of  the  Christian  life 
is  so  reversed  that  we  are  now  called  to  ex- 
hume what  has  been  buried,  and  to  clothe  our- 
selves again  in  the  cast-off  garments  which 
we  have  solemnly  declared  to  be  beyond  the 
hope  of  renovation.  No  !  what  has  been  cru- 
cified must  be  mortified,  what  has  been  buried 
must  be  kept  down.  So  hopeless  and  irrep- 
arable is  the  doom  of  the  flesh,  that  we  know 
not  that  it  is  any  better  in  the  believer  than 
in  the  unbeliever,  only  that  its  instincts  are 
repressed,  and  its  dominion  circumscribed. 
"  In  me,  that  is,  in  my  flesh,  dwelleth  no  good 
thing."  Whither,  then,  shall  I  turn  in  my 
deep  desire  to  attain  a  sinless  life,  a  fruitful 
obedience,  and  a  holy  walk?  Even  unto 
Him  who,  having  begotten  holy  desires  within 
me,  is  able  "  to  give  unto  them  their  meat  in 
due  season,"  and  who,  having  clothed  me  with 
salvation  as  with  a  garment,  can  also  nour- 
ish and  build  me  up  in  inward  sanctity  and 
perfectness. 

Let  us  note  then  how,  as  every  condition 
of  our  accredited  sanctification  rests  on  our 


1/2  IN  CHRIST. 

being  in  Christ,  so  every  condition  of  our 
practical  sanctification  rests  on  our  abiding 
or  continuing  in  Christ 

In.  the  first  place,  sanctification  implies  holi- 
ness. To  the  question,  How  shall  I  attain  a 
sinless  life  ?  the  Word  has  but  one  answer : 
"  In  Him  is  no  sin  ;  wliosoever  abidetJt  in  Him 
sinneth  not1.'  *  As  the  soul  that  is  in  Him 
through  the  union  of  faith,  is  covered  with  his 
stainless  righteousness,  so  that  soul  abiding 
in  Him  in  the  unbroken  fellowship  of  love  and 
obedience,  is  filled  with  his  sinless  life.  It 
sins  not  actively,  since  its  activities  are  for  the 
time  controlled  by  Him,  and  so  the  principle 
of  evil  is  inoperative  and  lying  in  abeyance. 
Not  that  the  root  of  sin  has  been  eradicated. 
This  is  entwined  with  every  fibre  of  the  car- 
nal nature,  "like  ivy  in  an  ancient  wall,"  as 
Flavel  says,  "  which,  however  plucked  and  up- 
rooted, can  never  be  wholly  gotten  out  of  it 
till  the  wall  is  taken  down."  But  it  is  kept 
for  the  time  in  blessed  unfruitfulness,  its  leaf 
withered  by  the  brightness  of  the  Saviour's 
presence. 

Doubtless  many  Christians  have  known 
such  experiences,  —  periods  of  happy  exemp- 

1  I  John  iii.  5. 


IN  CHRIST.  1 73 

tion  from  willful  transgression,  because  the 
will  has  been  given  up  to  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  One  ;  seasons  of  communion  with  Christ 
in  which  the  fetters  of  fleshly  bondage  have 
been  for  the  while  so  thoroughly  broken,  and 
its  cords  cast  away,  that  the  favored  one  has 
almost  questioned  whether  he  was  in  the  body 
or  out  of  the  body.  We  may  instance  such 
privileged  days  as  those  which  Flavel  describes, 
when  he  was  permitted  to  have  such  intimacy 
with  Christ,  "  such  ravishing  tastes  of  heavenly 
joys,  and  such  full  assurance  of  his  interest 
therein,  that  he  utterly  lost  sight  and  sense  of 
this  world  and  all  the  concerns  thereof ; "  those 
favored  engagements  with  the  Lord  Jesus, 
which  Brainerd  records  when  he  felt  within 
himself  such  "  lively  actings  of  a  holy  temper 
and  heavenly  disposition,  such  vigorous  exer- 
cise of  that  divine  love  which  casts  out  fear," 
that  it  was  literally  Christ  for  him  to  live  ;  that 
deep  entering  into  the  divine  life  which  Ed- 
wards enjoyed,  and  which  he  describes  as  "  a 
calm,  sweet  abstraction  of  soul  from  all  the  con- 
cerns of  this  world  ;  and  sometimes  a  kind  of 
vision  or  fixed  idea  of  being  alone  in  the  moun- 
tains, or  some  solitary  wilderness  far  from  all 
mankind,  sweetly  conversing  with  Christ,  and 


1/4  IN  CHRIST. 

rapt  and  swallowed  up  in  God."  But  surely 
never  more  than  after  such  abundant  manifes- 
tations of  the  power  of  the  divine  grace  to  lift 
one  beyond  the  control  of  the  flesh  and  into 
uninterrupted  communion  with  Christ,  does  he 
need  to  be  warned  to  take  heed,  lest,  thinking 
that  he  thereby  standeth  in  a  state  of  sinless 
perfection,  he  suddenly  fall.  There  is  a  wide 
difference  between  a  present  attainment  and  a 
permanent  attainment.  And  who  has  not 
found  that  it  is  easier  to  rise  to  lofty  heights 
than  it  is  to  maintain  one's  self  there  ?  These 
grapes  of  Eshcol,  these  "days  of  heaven/' 
full  of  deep  communion  and  freedom  from  con- 
scious sin,  remind  us,  by  their  very  rarity  and 
infrequency,  that  we  have  not  yet  reached  the 
promised  land  of  perfect  holiness.  But  they 
tell  us  where  to  find  that  land,  —  not  back,  be- 
yond the  waters  of  our  baptism,  in  the  Egypt 
of  the  flesh  and  in  the  bondage  of  th'e  law,  — 
but  onward  over  that  Jordan  of  death  in  which 
we  shall  put  off  this  corruptible  forever ;  in  that 
land  which  the  Lord  hath  given  to  us  for  an 
inheritance,  where  we  shall  abide  continually 
in  Christ,  because  sundered  forever  from  the 
root  of  Adam.  Such  wild  dreams  as  that  of 
perfection  in  the  flesh  would  be  little  enter- 


IN  CHRIST. 

tained  if  men  kept  clearly  in  view  the  distinc- 
tion between  what  we  are  in  Christ  and  what 
we  are  /;/  ourselves.  To  be  in  Him  is  to  be 
saved  at  once  and  forever  from  the  condemna- 
tion of  sin,  but  as  the  lives  of  the  highest  and 
the  lowest  saints  alike  testify,  not  immedi- 
ately from  the  presence  and  inworking  of  sin. 
Christ  had  sin  upon  Him,  though  He  had  no 
sin  in  Him.  He  that  is  in  Christ  has  no  sin 
upon  him,  though  he  still  has  sin  in  him. 
And  just  in  proportion  to  the  completeness 
of  his  abiding  in  Him  by  communion  and 
obedience,  will  he  be  free  from  sin  within  him 
as  he  is  from  sin  upon  him.  But  let  us  not  be 
deceived.  Because  the  Spirit  addresses  us  as 
those  that  are  "  sanctified  in  tJte  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus" l  let  us  not  therefore  claim  to 
have  reached  a  state  of  practical  and  realized 
sanctification  in  ourselves.  "  We  are  in  Him 
that  is  true,"  and  "  In  Him  is  no  sin." 
"  But  if  we  say  that  we  have  no  sin,  we  de- 
ceive ourselves,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us" 
Not  yet  have  we  reached  that  Paradise  of  holy 
perfection  for  which  we  sigh,  that  sweet  mil- 
lennium of  inward  peace  and  righteousness 
where  sin  can  hurt  and  destroy  no  longer. 
1  I  Cor.  vl  1 1. 


1/6  IN  CHRIST. 

For  that  we  wait  till  the  old  leaven  of  the 
flesh  has  been  purged  out  and  we  have  be- 
come a  new  lump.  And  then  when  Christ 
who  is  our  life  shall  appear,  —  appear  "  with- 
out sin  unto  salvation"  —  shall  we  appear  also 
with  Him  in  glory,  without  sin  either  in  us 
or  upon  us  forever. 

Is  Death  then  the  great  sanctifier  ?  it  is  im- 
patiently asked.  Is  his  cold  hand  endowed 
with  a  skill  and  cunning  to  do  the  work  for  us 
in  a  moment  which  the  Spirit  and  the  Word 
and  the  ordinances  have  failed  to  perfect  in  a 
lifetime  ?  Nay,  death  is  but  the  letting  go  of 
a  hand  that  has  been  constantly  hindering  that 
work,  the  final  relinquishmeht  of  his  hold  on 
the  part  of  that  carnal  man  who  is  neither 
subject  to  the  law  of  God  himself,  nor  permits 
the  believer  in  whom  he  dwells  to  be  subject 
to  it.1  This  much  negatively  ;  and  then  it  is 

1  St.  Francis  de  Sales  writes  to  one  who  complains  cf 
sad  heart  sickness  over  the  evil  of  an  unsanctified  will  : 
"  Thank  God,  *  this  sickness  is  not  unto  death,  but  for  the 
glory  of  God.'  .You  are  like  Rebecca  when  two  peoples 
struggled  within  her  womb,  but  the  younger  was  destined  to 
prevail.  Self-lave  cmly  dies  with  our  natural  death  ;  it  has  a 
thousand  wiles  whereby  to  keep  a  hold  within  the  soul,  and 
we  cannot  drive  it  forth.  It  is  the  first-born  of  the  soul ; 
it  is  upheld  by  a  legion  of  auxiliaries,  emotions,  actions,  in- 
clinations, passions  ;  it  is  adroit,  and  knows  how  to  employ 


IN  CHRIST.  177 

also  the  rending  of  the  veil  that  keeps  us  from 
full  communion  with  the  Lord.  For  to  be  with 
Christ  where  He  is,  whether  that  presence  be 
gained  by  our  going  to  Him  or  by  his  com- 
ing to  us,  is  doubtless  essential  to  a  state  of 
complete  abiding  in  Him,  and  hence  of  full 
conformity  to  Him. 

Who  knows  what  depth  of  meaning  is  hid- 
den in  that,  "  For  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is," 
in  which  John  finds  the  reason  and  pledge  of 
our  likeness  to  Christ  at  his  appearing  ?  All 
our  holiness  is  in  Him  and  from  Him,  as  the 
sunbeams  are  in  and  of  the  sun.  But  how 
is  its  lustre  dimmed  in  passing  through  the 
medium  of  our  fleshly  life,  and  how  are  its  rays 
broken  and  refracted  before  they  fall  upon 
the  retina  of  our  inward  eye.  Only  in  the 
open  vision  of  his  face  and  jn  his  light  who 
is  "  the  Light,"  can  our  likeness  to  Him  be 
rendered  perfect.  For  only  thus  can  we  truly 
reflect  his  purity,  seeing  Him  as  He  is,  and 
having  the  last  germs  of  impurity  in  our- 
selves consumed  in  that  light  which  is  above 

endless  subtleties.  On  the  other  hand,  the  love  of  God, 
which  is  later  born,  has  its  emotions,  actions,  inclinations, 
and  passions.  These  two  struggle  within  us,  and  their  con- 
vulsive movements  cause  us  infinite  trouble.  But  the  love 
of  God  must  triumph."  —  Spiritual  Letters,  XII. 


/-A7  CHRIST. 

the  brightness  of  the  sun.  It  is  not  only 
that  our  Lord  will  give  us  more  of  Himself, 
but  will  give  it  "  directly  from  Himself  in 
place  of  its  coming  through  an  'earthen  ves- 
sel,' which  both  limits  the  abounding  flow  of 
his  fullness  and  also  gives  an  earthy  taste  to 
the  living  water." 1 

And  what  we  have  said  of  holiness  applies 
equally  to  another  element  of  progressive  sanc- 
tification,  its  very  evidence  and  attestation  in- 
deed, Christian  fruitfulness.  This  is  from  Je- 
sus Christ  only.  "  He  that  abidcth  in  me  and 
I  in  Jam,  the  same  bringeth  forth  much  fruit"  2 
In  Him  by  faith,  and  hence  one  with  Him  in 
that  unchangeable  justification  which  enwraps 
the  Head  and  the  members  together,  we  may 
be  very  far  from  abiding  in  Him  by  that  full 
communion  through  which  his  life  flows  into 
us  without  interruption,  and  abides  in  us 
without  stint.  The  feeble  branch  may  be  in 
the  trunk  as  truly  as  the  fruitful  one,  knit  into 
its  structure  by  the  same  compactness  of 
grain  and  fibre.  But  because  it  has  little 
communion  with  it  through  the  vital  sap,  it 
bears  little  fruit,  and  adorns  its  station  with 
little  greenness  and  beauty.  Christ  our  Vine 

1  Adelaide  Newton.  8  John  xv.  5. 


IN  CHRIST 

is  not  straitened  in  Himself,  but  only  in  us. 
As  impossible  as  it  is  for  the  fruits  of  holi- 
ness to  grow  upon  the  stock  of  human  nature, 
so  impossible  is  it  for  anything  else  to  grow 
upon  the  divine.  That  which  is  born  of 
God  cannot  commit  sin.  It  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  presenting  such  an  open  channel  for 
the  inflow  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  that  the  holy 
principle  shall  be  transmitted  to  us  without 
obstruction,  and  reproduce  itself  without  re- 
straint. 

Is  there  not  a  painful  tendency  among 
believers  to  seek  fruit  from  without  instead 
of  from  within,  and  to  be  satisfied  with  such 
good  works  as  are  the  mere  extrinsic  adorn- 
ments of  faith  instead  of  its  direct  outgrowth  ? 
But  whether  we  speak  of  fulfilling  righteous- 
ness in  ourselves  or  towards  others,  the  same 
principle  obtains,  that  "  whatsoever  is  not  of 
faith,"  and  hence  not  of  Christ,  "  is  sin."  For 
sanctification  we  have  not  to  copy  another's 
holiness,  however  excellent,  but  to  work  out 
our  own  salvation  ;  to  unfold  to  its  utmost 
limit  that  divine  life  which  is  ours  in  Christ 
And  for  service  the  law  is  the  same.  Love 
to  neighbor  and  self-denial  for  mankind  are 
to  be  no  borrowed  graces,  lent  us  either  by 


180  IN  CHRIST. 

philanthropy  or  the  law.  With  the  disciples, 
who  so  significantly  met  our  Lord's  demand 
for  a  sevenfold  forgiveness  of  a  sevenfold  of- 
fense, with  the  prayer,  "  Increase  our  faith" 
we  shall  learn  more  and  more  that  the  only 
way  to  augment  the  fruits  of  charity  and  long 
suffering  is  to  strike  the  roots  of  our  faith  more 
deeply  into  Christ,  and  entwine  them  more  in- 
timately about  that  cross  from  which  the  first- 
fruits  of  divine  forgiveness  were  gathered,  and 
from  which  all  subsequent  fruit  must  also 
spring.  So  directly  indeed  is  likeness  to 
Christ  dependent  upon  communion  with 
Christ,  that  John  makes  the  two  equivalent 
terms.  "  He  that  saith  he  abideth  in  Him 
ought  himself  also  so  to  walk  even  as  He 
walked."  Relationship  to  Him  determines  all 
other  relationships,  those  of  conformity  to  God 
and  those  of  non-conformity  to  the  world  alike. 
Adjust  the  heart  therefore  to  Him,  and  the 
world  is  sure  to  be  in  its  proper  place.  Put 
on  Christ,  and  you  are  certain  to  put  off  sin. 
"I/you  are  clothed  with  the  sun,  the  moon  (all 
sublunary  things)  will  be  under  your  feet." 

If  from  the  conditions,  we  turn  to  consider 
the  means  of  sanctification,  we  see  how  ob- 
viously these  are  such,  because  they  are  the 


IN  CHRIST.  l8l 

media  of  communion  with  Christ,  and  of  par- 
ticipance  in  his  life. 

"  Sanctify  them  through  thy  trutJi"  the 
truth  not  only  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  but  as  Jesus 
is  in  it.  For  the  word,  it  need  not  be  said,  is 
the  earthly  repository  of  Christ,  filled  by  his 
informing  presence,  and  vital  with  all  the  yet 
undiscovered  meanings  of  his  hidden  wis- 
dom. Therefore  is  it  able  to  be  the  daily 
bread  of  the  soul,  and  to  satisfy  all  possible 
cravings  of  its  divine  hunger.  "  Thy  words 
were  found  of  me,  and  I  did  eat  them." 

"  Chosen  to  salvation  through  sanctification 
of  the  Spirit"  the  Holy  One  whose  office  it 
is  to  take  of  the  things  of  Christ  and  show 
them  unto  us.  For  this  we  must  always  re- 
member, that  He  does  not  speak  of  Himself. 
He  brings  "  the  Life  "  to  our  life,  and  makes 
the  sanctified  One  to  be  more  and  more  our 
sanctification,  until  we  are  filled  with  all  his 
fullness. 

Thus  slowly,  and  as  it  may  seem  to  us  quite 
imperceptibly,  is  God  bringing  this  divine 
work  to  completion  in  us.  Blessed  are  they 
who  shrink  not  from  the  sharper  but  not  less 
needed  means  of  its  accomplishment,  those 
trials  and  chastisements,  those  humiliations 


1 82  IN  CHRIST. 

and  self-denials,  which  are  the  pangs  of  trans- 
formation through  which  Christ  is  to  be  fully 
formed  within  us.  "Though  our  outward 
man  perish,  yet  the  inward  man  is  renewed 
day  by  day."  "  The  more  the  marble  wastes, 
the  more  the  statue  grows,"  wrote  Michael 
Angelo.  And  impossible  as  it  will  be  for 
nature,  let  it  not  be  impossible  for  grace  to 
cry  daily,  "  Welcome  cross,  welcome  trials, 
welcome  all  things  sweet  or  bitter,  which  shall 
bring  forth  within  us  that  perfect  man,  that 
divine  ideal,  visible  ever  to  the  eye  of  God, 
and  growing  more  and  more  upon  our  sight 
as  we  grow  up  into  Him  who  is  our  Head." 


X.     GLORIFICATION   IN 
CHRIST. 


* 

for  if  toe  bdictoe  tfjat  ^Tcsus  bictJ 
ro#c  again,  cfccn  #o  tljcm  aljso 
in  3c£it£  loiH  oBoti  bring 

i  Thess.  iv.  14. 


Ipim  arc  pc  in  Cfjriat 
maDc  unto  ii£  .. 
tion.  i  c^r.  i.  30 


for  tfjc  Horfc  fjim^df  .s^aH  tJcsccno 
from  fjcafccn  tuitf)  a  jsl)out,  tuitl)  tf)c  boicc 
of  tl)c  arrljangcl,  ano  toitl)  tljc  truing  of 
anti  tlje  ticao  in  Cftri^t  ^Da 

i  Thess,  iv.  16. 


X. 

GLORIFICATION  IN  CHRIST. 

JJHE  redemption  of  the  body !  Not 
only  is  this  the  event  towards  which 
the  universal  longing  of  creation  1  is 
directed,  but  the  hope  as  involved  in  the  re- 
turn of  the  Lord  Jesus  to  which  all  Christian 
doctrine  points,  and  to  which  each  Christian 
ordinance  is  divinely  adjusted.  The  first 
light  that  is  reflected  in  the  face  of  the  new- 
born disciple  as  he  comes  forth  from  the 
waters  of  burial  with  Christ,  is  a  foregleam  of 
this  hope.  "  For  if  we  have  been  planted  to- 
gether in  the  likeness  of  his  death,  we  shall 
be  in  the  likeness  of  his  resurrection"  The 
last  sound  that  lingers  on  our  ears  as  the 
formula  of  the  communion  is  repeated,  is  a 
refrain  of  this  blessed  hope :  "  For  as  often  as 
ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  this  cup,  ye  do 
show  the  Lord's  death  ////  He  come"  Upon 

1  Rom.  viii.  22. 


1 86  IN  CHRIST. 

every  thirtieth  verse  of  Gospel  and  Epistle,  a 
ray  of  this  hope  falls  either  directly  or  ob- 
•  liquely  ;  while  throughout,  duties  and  prom- 
ises and  beatitudes  are  turned  to  it  and  po- 
larized by  it  as  the  supreme  reward  of  faith. 
"  Behold  I  come  quickly,  and  my  reward  is 
with  me." 

And  yet  is  there  not  a  strange  tendency  in 
the  human  mind  to  rest  content  with  a  less 
reward  than  God  has  promised  ;  to  satisfy 
our  hopes  with  the  anticipation  of  some  shad- 
owy and  undefinable  state  of  existence  be- 
yond the  grave,  when  He  has  so  clearly 
pledged  the  restitution  of  the  present  mode 
of  being  with  the  single  element  of  sin  and 
its  consequences  eliminated  ?  A  longing  to 
be  delivered  from  "  the  body  of  this  death," 
therefore,  should  not  imply  even  a  willingness 
to  be  forever  delivered  from  the  body.  For 
as  clearly  as  Christ  is  set  forth  as  the  de- 
stroyer of  the  flesh,  the  corruptible  and 
mortal  element  of  our  nature,  so  clearly  is 
He  revealed  as  the  Saviour  of  the  body. 

It  is  this  hope  only  that  gives  a  homelike 
realness  to  our  future  life  ;  that  peoples  it 
with  the  same  saints  and  the  same  Jesus  whom 
we  have  known  as  residents  of  the  earth ;  that 


Iff  CHRIST.  187 

makes  certain  to  us  indeed  our  own  identity 
in  that  existence.  And  if  we  may  not  quite 
say  that  "  we  can  conceive  of  nothing  entered 
upon  in  separation  from  the  body  that  is 
worthy  to  be  called  life,"  we  feel  at  least  that 
the  thought  of  being  forever  bereaved  of  that 
in  which  we  have  lived  and  toiled  and  suffered 
so  much,  would  cast  a  shadow  upon  the  soul 
such  as  only  the  dread  of  annihilation  could 
render  darker.  For  such  an  issue  would  in- 
volve a  twofold  defeat :  on  the  one  hand,  the 
casting  down  of  man's  dearest  hope  in  Christ, 
that  of  his  final  reconciliation  to  himself;  on 
the  other,  an  apparent  partial  triumph  of  evil 
over  God  in  the  eternal  putting  asunder  of 
what  in  the  beginning  He  so  sacredly  joined 
together. 

But  Christianity  allows  us  not  even  a 
dreary  speculation  on  this  point.  For  while 
it  does  not  silence  the  groaning  of  the  soul  to 
be  free  from  what  is  now  often  a  burden,  it 
yet  modulates  the  groan  into  a  confession  of 
faith,  "  Not  for  that  we  would  be  unclothed, 
but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality  might  be 
swallowed  up  of  life." 

How  intimately  this  hope,  like  all  others  of 
the  gospel,  is  wrapped  up  in  the  person  of 


1 88  IN  CHRIST. 

Jesus  Christ  ;  and  how  the  sacred  bonds  of 
union  that  hold  us  to  Him  for  every  other 
blessing,  bind  us  to  Him  in  spite  of  death  for 
the  redemption  of  the  body  also,  we  shall  see 
as  we  advance. 

First  of  all,  the  believer's  dying  is  in  the 
Lord.  "  TJiey  which  are  fallen  asleep  in 
Christ"  is  Paul's  exquisitely  tender  phrase  ; 
words  suggestive  not  only  of  painless  repose, 
but  of  a  repose  which  is  perpetually  guarded 
and  invested  by  his  holy  presence.  They 
have  fainted  in  his  arms,  and  He  holds  and 
sustains  and  embraces  them  until  the  death 
trance  shall  be  broken.  "  Lord,  if  they  sleep 
they  shall  do  well,"  our  hearts  instinctively 
respond.  For  the  very  word  is  a  prophecy 
of  a  better  resurrection,  and  the  state  it- 
self the  peculiar  purchase  of  our  Redeemer 
for  his  own.  "  He  giveth  his  beloved  sleep." 
All  die.  But  only  those  who  have  lived  in 
Him  will  sleep  in  Him,  in  the  cameteriiim  of 
the  saints,  in  the  true  Machpelah  of  the  re- 
deemed which  He  has  bought  for  them  by  his 
blood.  Hence  the  deep  significance  of  those 
words  descriptive  of  the  holy  dead,  as  "  those 
laid  to  sleep  through  Jesus"  x  connecting,  as 
1  I  Thess.  iv.  14. 


IN  CHRIST.  189 

they  do,  the  repose  as  well  as  the  resurrection 
of  the  saints'  bodies  directly  with  his  medi- 
ation. 

And  the  terms  change  not.  They  cover 
the  entire  state  from  the  last  gasp  of  dying 
breath  to  the  joyful  awaking  of  the  resurrection 
morning.  u  The  dead  in  Christ,"  The  words 
form  a  kind  of  epitaph  in  brief  for  the  tomb 
of  all  the  faithful,  an  epitaph  which,  if  it  does 
not  answer  every  question  of  a  curious  mind 
concerning  the  departed,  tells  us  the  one  thing 
that  we  long  to  know,  that  they  are  safe  and 
shall  live  again.  And  so  we  may  tell  the  story 
of  the  Christian's  burial  no  longer  in  that  brief 
hollow  phrase  which  to  the  ancients  seemed 
the  tendcrest  allusion  that  could  be  made  to 
the  deceased,  " Non  est"  he  is  not ;  but  in 
words  like  those  of  Bunyan's,  so  fragrant  of 
heart's-ease  and  immortelle,  —  "  The  pilgrim 
they  laid  in  a  chamber  whose  window  opetied 
towards  the  sun  rising ;  the  name  of  that 
chamber  was  Peace,  wliere  Ji£  slept  till  tJie 
break  of  day" 

And  as  it  is  the  unbroken  union  of  the  de- 
parted saints  with  their  Saviour  that  consti- 
tutes their  felicity  and  our  warrant  for  sealing 
their  tombs  with  that  beatitude,  "  Blessed  are 


190  IN  CHRIST. 

the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord,"  so  it  is 
through  this  union  that  they  will  be  raised  up 
at  the  appearing  of  the  Lord.  For  the  resur- 
rection is  the  drawing  of  Christ's  members 
after  Him,  the  prolonging  and  consummating 
of  his  own  renewal  from  the  dead  in  the  per- 
sons of  those  who  have  been  incorporated 
into  his  body.  Thus  it  would  seem  to  be  an 
event  not  simply  wrought  upon  them  from 
without,  but  fashioned  also  from  within. 

Does  not  St.  Paul's  emblem  of  the  resur- 
rection, the  quickening  of  the  grain  that  has 
died  in  the  earth,  furnish  a  beautiful  sug- 
gestion of  this  truth  ?  The  springing  up  of 
the  seed  is  not  merely  the  result  of  a  life 
given  from  the  sunlight  and  the  rain,  but  of  a 
life  evoked  by  these.  Even  so  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  just  will  be  life  answering  to  life, 
the  life  of  God  in  man,  responding  to  the  call 
and  yielding  to  the  attraction  of  Him  who  is 
"  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life."  "  But  if 
the  Spirit  of  Him  that  raised  up  Jesiis  from 
the  dead  divell  in  you,  He  that  raised  up 
Christ  from  the  dead  shall  quicken  your  mor- 
tal bodies  by  his  Spirit  that  dwclletli  in  you"  J 
This,  the  Spirit  of  life,  is  the  vital  bond  that 

Rom.  viii.  2. 


IN  CHRIST.  191 

holds  the  bodies  of  the  saints  as  well  as  their 
souls  in  union  with  the  Lord,  the  bond  on 
whose  perpetuity  every  hope  of  restitution 
depends.  And  as  close  as  are  the  links  of 
logic  by  which  the  Apostle  welds  the  believer's 
resurrection  to  that  of  his  Lord,  it  is  after  all 
that  link  of  life,  "  in  Christ,"  on  which  all  hangs 
suspended.  "  If  we  believe  that  Jesus  died 
and  rose  again,  even  so  them  that  sleep  in  Je- 
sus will  God  bring  with  Him?  How  that 
other  awakening,  the  resurrection  of  the  un- 
just, is  related  to  that  of  our  Lord,  we  know 
not.  But  only  they  that  are  Christ's  at  his 
coming  will  hear  the  Bridegroom's  voice, 
"  And  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first" 
From  the  dust  and  from  the  deeps  they  will 
respond,  the  voice  from  beneath  saluting  the 
voice  from  above,  "  Thou  shalt  call  and  I 
will  answer,"  while  in  "  that  silence  that 
terrifies  thought "  the  others  will  remain,  till 
God  shall  bring  them  forth  to  judgment. 

And  going  beyond  the  event  of  the  be- 
liever's resurrection  to  the  nature  of  the  risen 
body,  are  any  of  those  deep  anxious  questions 
which  we  are  wont  to  put  concerning  it  an- 
swered except  in  Christ  ?  To  many  the  dec- 
laration, "  It  is  raised  a  spiritual  body,"  seems 


1 92  IN  CHRIST. 

only  to  baffle  the  longing  for  knowledge  that 
it  would  answer.  For  while  one,  seizing  upon 
the  word  "  spiritual,"  floats  away  immediately 
into  shapeless  conceptions  of  an  immaterial 
existence,  and  another,  hearing  the  word 
"  body,"  cries  out, "  Nay  !  but  flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God,"  each 
returns  from  his  misleading  pursuit  of  the 
truth  to  press  with  redoubled  eagerness 
the  question,  "  With  what  body  do  they 
come  ?  "  But  in  Jesus  Christ  the  question  is 
answered.  In  his  showing  Himself  alive  after 
his  passion  by  many  infallible  proofs,  He 
shows  us  as  in  a  living  mirror  our  own  future 
bodies.  For  thus  we  reason. 

"  As  He  is,  so  are  we  in  this  world."  He 
is  holy  and  righteous  altogether.  And  be- 
cause "  he  that  is  joined  to  the  Lord  is  one 
spirit,"  we  know  that  holiness  and  righteous- 
ness, those  divine  features  of  the  soul,  once 
lost,  are  perfectly  restored  to  us  in  Him. 

"  When  He  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like 
Him."  But  He  will  come  as  He  went  up, 
with  a  body  of  "flesh  and  bones."  And  be- 
cause of  that  divine  kindredship  in  which 
"  we  are  members  of  his  body,  of  his  flesh,  and 
of  his  bones,"  we  know  without  question  that 


IN  CHRIST.  193 

we  shall  receive  back  our  bodies  perfected  in 
Him  ;  no  lineament  of  their  identity  lost,  no 
finest  tracing  of  their  life-long  discipline 
erased,  despoiled  of  nothing  but  their  corrup- 
tion and  mortality,  and  whether  "  blind  from 
the  prison-house,  or  maimed  from  the  battle, 
or  mad  from  the  tombs,"  sitting  at  last  aston- 
ished at  his  feet,  with  perfect  sight  and  sound- 
ness and  beauty,  because  "fashioned  like 
unto  his  glorious  body." 

So  then,  while  it  is  clear  that  the  flesh  in 
its  present  corruptible  state  cannot  inherit  the 
kingdom  of  God,  it  seems  equally  clear  that 
in  a  transformed  and  glorified  state  it  will 
inherit  that  kingdom.  The  translation  of 
Enoch,  says  Dr.  Owen,  "  is  a  divine  testi- 
mony that  the  body  itself  is  capable  of  eternal 
life"  And  so  vital  is  this  witness  to  God's 
Church,  that  like  Peter's  vision  it  has  been 
thrice  repeated  before  human  eyes  —  in  the 
Patriarchal  age  by  Enoch,  in  the  Prophetic 
age  bv  Elijah,  and  in  the  Gospel  age  by 
Christ.  And  now,  whatever  hope  concern- 
ing our  future  state  may  be  obscure  or  un- 
certain, we  need  no  longer  falter  in  pronounc- 
ing this  glad  confession,  "  Yet  in  my  flesh 
shall  I  see  God? 
13 


194  IN  CHRIST. 

Nor  is  this  testimony  of  God  general  merely. 
In  the  risen  Christ  minute  particulars  are 
detailed.  He  ate  and  drank  before  hi-,  disci- 
ples. He  revealed  Himself  to  their  sight  as  a 
veritable  body,  and  to  their  touch  as  the  same 
body  with  which  they  had  been  acquainted, 
by  the  attesting  marks  of  his  passion.  And 
He  showed  also  the  mysterious  spirituality  of 
this  body  in  its  freedom  from  the  restraints 
of  matter,  and  its  superiority  to  the  ordi- 
nary laws  of  gravity  and  motion.  And  an 
eager  faith  easily  translates  these  hints  con- 
cerning our  glorified  life.  The  senses  that 
have  lighted  up  the  world  for  us,  though  long 
quenched  in  the  grave,  have  leave  from  the 
Son  of  man  to  rest  in  hope.  Surely  they 
shall  be  quickened  for  nobler  offices  than 
they  ever  yet  have  known,  and  in  that  resti- 
tution of  all  things  even  the  material  body 
will  present  its  glorified  members  before  its 
Creator  with  the  confession,  Of  all  that  thou 
hast  given  me  I  have  lost  nothing,  but  Thou 
hast  raised  it  up  at  the  last  day.  With  what 
finer  vision  and  keener  sense  the  eye  shall 
open  at  that  glad  awakening  ;  to  what  yet  un- 
imagined  harmonies  the  ear  shall  be  attuned  ; 
for  what  alert  and  tireless  ministries  the  feet 


JN  CHRIST.  195 

shall  be  prepared,  who  can  tell  ?  "  They  that 
wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength  ; 
they  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles ; 
they  shall  run  and  not  be  weary ;  and  they 
shall  walk  and  not  faint." 

To  the  question  of  the  identity  of  the  resur- 
rection body  with  that  in  which  we  now  dwell, 
do  we  not  see  the  answer  most  delicately 
outlined  in  those  two  phrases  of  Paul's  illus- 
tration of  the  grain,  "  Thou  sowest  not  that 
body  that  shall  be"  and,  "  to  every  seed  his 
own  body  "  f  Nowhere  in  nature  is  there  such 
an  approach  to  literal  sameness  between  two 
objects  as  between  the  seed  and  its  product 
The  same  vital  substance  has  been  taken  up 
from  the  old  kernel  and  curiously  transmuted 
into  the  new,  decay  and  corruption  only 
being  left  behind.  Every  minutest  peculiar- 
ity of  form  and  taste  and  color  has  been  ex- 
actly reproduced.  The  seed  that  dies  is  not 
the  seed  that  shall  be,  but  there  is  such  iden- 
tity between  them  that  the  two  cannot  pos- 
sibly coexist  as  separate  units,  the  second 
having  its  being  only  in  the  ceasing  of  the 
first  to  be. 

If  then  our  hope  of  physical  identity  in 
the  life  to  come  seems  to  be  discouraged  by 


196  IN  CHRIST. 

the  words, "  not  that  body  that  shall  be,"  do 
not  the  other  words,  "  to  every  seed  its  own 
body"  satisfy  our  deepest  longings  ?  They 
seem  to  assure  iis  that  we  shall  again  be  "  at 
home  in  the  body"  and  not  strangers  for  a 
single  moment,  looking  back  to  a  tabernacle 
which  has  been  put  off,  and  lost  to  us,  and  to 
which  we  have  said  an  eternal  farewell ;  and 
that  we  shall  feel  ourselves  possessed  of  the 
same  familiar  self,  in  spite  of  all  the  mortal 
and  perishable  that  has  fallen  away  in  our 
transformation.  And  by  this  inalienable  per- 
sonality we  shall  be  known,  as  well  as  know. 
The  fashion  of  the  countenance,  on  which  all 
human  recognition  depends,  will  be  altered 
indeed,  but  perhaps  only  by  the  unearthly 
glory  that  shall  transfigure  it.  Stephen  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  was  Stephen  still,  though 
they  that  "  looked  steadfastly  on  him  saw  his 
face  as  it  had  been  the  face  of  an  angel" 

And  not  alone  the  man  whose  earthly  coun- 
tenance was  moulded  by  the  impress  of  long 
years  of  trial  and  discipline,  but  even  the  in- 
fant that  only  looked  for  a  troubled  moment 
upon  life  and  then  died,  has  an  inviolable  seal 
of  individuality  which  death  cannot  efface. 


IN  CHRIST.  197 

"One  look  sufficed  to  tell  me  they  were  mine, 
My  babes,  my  blossoms,  my  long  parted  ones ; 
The  same  in  feature  and  in  form  as  when 
I  bent  above  their  dying  pillow  last, 
Yet  beaming  with  the  likeness  of  their  Lord." 

Does  it  not  give  a  certain  dignity  and  worth 
to  human  being,  that  the  tiniest  body  and  the 
briefest  span  of  earthly  life  is  a  title-deed  to 
the  resurrection  ?  "  As  we  have  borne  the  im- 
age of  the  earthy,  we  shall  bear  the  image  of 
the  heavenly."  And  the  seed  of  humanity 
that  barely  broke  the  shell  of  non-existence 
and  then  fell  into  the  earth  to  die,  because  it 
is  a  seed,  must  be  quickened  after  Christ  the 
first-fruits. 

With  such  hopes  as  these  set  before  us, 
what  is  there  left  for  us  to  desire  concern- 
ing our  future  ?  We  do  not  say  that  the  dread 
/of  death  is  taken  away.  He  is  a  real  enemy 
to  be  met,  and  no  mere  disarmed  and  pow- 
erless foe  to  be  despised.  There  may  be  vic- 
tory in  his  presence,  but  it  is  the  victory  of 
hope,  the  triumph  seen  from  afar,  giving  exul- 
tation in  present  defeat,  and  enabling  him  who 
is  now  overthrown  to  cry,  "  Rejoice  not  against 
me,  O  mine  enemy ;  though  I  fall  I  shall  arise." 
But  with  the  most  heroic  facing  of  his  terrors, 
and  with  the  sturdiest  endurance  of  his  pain, 


198  IN  CHRIST. 

as  he  rends  from  us  the  garment  of  our  mor- 
tality, we  are  as  yet  victims  and  not  victors. 

But  "  when  this  mortal  shall  put  on  immor- 
tality," then  will  "  death  be  swallowed  up  in 
victory."  For  then  we  shall  not  only  have 
broken  forever  from  his  dominion,  but  we 
shall  have  reconquered  from  him  the  very 
spoils  of  which  he  robbed  us  ;  while,  in  a  body 
at  length  exalted  from  its  sorrowful  humilia- 
tions and  reconciled  to  itself  after  a  life-long 
warfare,  we  lead  our  own  captivity  captive. 
"  In  Adam  all  die."  Not  only  all  persons  but 
all  holy  relations  have  felt  the  death  shock  of 
sin ;  and  the  sharp  disuniting  sentence  that 
has  sundered  man  from  God,  has  not  less 
truly  sundered  man  from  himself.  But  "in 
Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."  The  bridal 
of  the  Church  to  her  Lord 'will  be  also  the 
bridal  of  the  soul  to  her  body,  the  redeemed 
spirit  and  the  redeemed  flesh  brought  at  last 
to  rejoice  together  in  perfected  harmony.  It 
is  this  hope  that  bridges  the  chasm  of  death, 
and  enables  the  heart  to  bound  across  it  in 
triumph 

Is  the  timid  cry  of  any  yet  in  bondage  to 
the  fear  of  death,  "  Who  am  I  that  I  should 
comfort  myself  with  such  a  hope  ?  Who  am 


IN  CHRIST.  199 

% 
I  that  I  should  be  counted  worthy  to  attain 

the  resurrection  of  the  dead  ?  "  There  is  but 
one  answer  :  "  /am  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Life." 

"  Live  in  Christ"  said  the  dying  John  Knox, 
"  live  in  Christ,  and  you  need  not  fear  the 
death  of  the  flesh." 


"  Help,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  the  joyful  day 
of  thy  Holy  Advent  may  come,  that  we  may 
be  redeemed  from  this  evil,  envious  world,  the 
devil's  kingdom,  and  be  set  free  from  the 
bitter  torments  that  we  suffer  both  from  with- 
out and  from  within  ;  both  from  wicked  men 
and  from  our  own  conscience.  Destroy  this 
old  Adam,  that  we  may  be  clothed  with 
another  body  that  is  not  disposed  to  evil  and 
excess  as  this  is,  but  which,  redeemed  from 
all  infirmity,  shall  be  made  like  unto  thy  glo- 
rious body,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  so  that  at 
last  we  may  attain  our  full  and  glorious  re- 
demption." Amen. 


NOTES. 


NOTES. 


NOTE  A.    Page  20. 

"So  also  is  the  Christ"  (i  Cor.  xii.  12.)  Here  the 
whole  structure  of  the  sentence  would  lead  us  to  expect  the 
words,  "so  olio  is  the  Church."  How  striking  this  turn 
in  the  thought  by  which,  almost  as  by  an  inspired  lapse  of 
speech,  the  body  of  believers  is  named  "  the  Christ  t "  Lan- 
guage can  go  no  further  in  expressing  the  perfect  oneness 
of  the  Lord  and  his  Church. 

NOTE  B.    Page  20. 

I  find  an  almost  identical  definition  of  Christian  experi- 
ence by  Mr.  Jukes.1  He  says,  "  Christian  experience  is  out 
measure  of  apprehension  of  that  which  is  already  true  for  us 
in  Jesus."  Now  it  is  already  true  for  us  in  Jesus  that  "  by 
Him  all  that  believe  are  justified  from  all  things."  And 
one  believer  is  just  as  completely  justified  as  another.  But 
how  various  the  degrees  of  apprehension  of  this  fact !  One 
sees  it  hardly  at  all  in  such  a  way  as  to  find  true  spiritual 
comfort  from  it.  Another  catches  glimpses  of  it,  a  little 
while  seeing  it,  and  a  little  while  not  seeing  it  And  a  few 
perhaps  apprehend  it  always  and  in  its  completeness.  A 
growing  experience  is  a  going  from  strength  to  strength  in 
this  truth,  till  every  one  of  us  in  the  Zion  of  full  assurance 
appearcth  before  God ! 

1  Law  of  tkt  Offtringt,  p.  44. 


204  NOTES. 

NOTE  C.    Page  30. 

"lam  crucified  with  Christ"  (Gal.  ii.  20.)  It  is  universally 
conceded  that  the  verb  here,  as  in  the  parallel  passages  in 
which  the  believer  is  represented  as  dead  with  Christ,  cruci- 
fied •with  Christ,  etc.,  should  be  translated  by  the  perfect 
tense,  connecting  the  event  directly  with  the  crucifixion  of 
our  Lord.  When,  for  the  sake  of  bringing  out  this  meaning, 
it  has  been  necessary  to  vary  from  the  common  version,  we 
have,  for  the  sake  of  uniformity,  taken  Dean  Alford's  trans- 
lation as  given  in  his  English  New  Testament,  marking  the 
passages  so  quoted,  by  a  *  in  the  margin. 

NOTE  D.    Page  32. 

1.  "  If  Christ  took  our  nature  upon  Him,  as  we  believe, 
by  an  act  of  love,  it  was  not  that  of  one  but  of  all.     He 
was  not  one  man  only  among  many  men,  but  in  Him  all 
humanity  was  gathered  up.     And  thus  now,  as  at  all  time, 
mankind  are,  so  to  speak,  organically  united  with   Him. 
His  acts  are  in  a  true  sense  our  acts,  so  far  as  we  realize 
the  union  ;  his  death  is  our  death,  his  resurrection  our  res- 
urrection."—  WESTCOTT'S  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection,  ch. 
ii.  39. 

2.  "  The  Son  of  God  took  on  Him  human  nature,  not  a 
human  personality.     '  He  took  not  angels,  but  the  seed  of 
Abraham.'    Therefore  He  becomes  the  Redeemer  of  our 
several  persons,  because  He  is  already  the  Redeemer  of 
this  our  common  nature,  which  He  has  made  forever  his 
own.     '  As  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be 
made  alive-'     As  human  nature  was  present  in  Adam,  when 
by  his  representative  sin  he  ruined  his  posterity ;  so  was 
human  nature  present  in  Christ  our  Lord,  when  by  his  vol- 
untary offering  of  his  sinless  self,  He  'bare  our  sins  in  his 
own  body  on  the  tree.'    Christ  is  thus  the  second  head  of 
our  race.     Our  nature  is  his  own.     He  carried  it  with  Him 


NOTES.  2O5 

through  life  to  death.  He  made  it  do  and  bear  that  which 
was  utterly  beyond  its  native  strength.  His  eternal  Person 
gave  infinite  merit  to  its  acts  and  its  sufferings.  In  Him  it 
died,  rose,  ascended,  and  was  perfectly  well-pleasing  to  the 
All-Holy.  Thus  by  no  forced  or  artificial  transaction,  but  in 
virtue  of  his  existing  representative  relation  to  the  human 
family,  He  gave  Himself  to  be  a  ransom  for  all.  In  inten- 
tion and  efficacy  his  sufferings  were  endured  on  behalf  of  all 
who  share  his  human  nature.  In  point  of  fact  they  avail  to 
pardon  those  who,  through  faith  and  the  sacraments,  are 
livingly  one  with  Him,  so  that  his  personal  acts  have  be- 
come their  own." —  LIDDON'S  University  Sermons,  pp.  225, 
226. 

3.  "  '  He  took  not  angels,  but  the  seed  of  Abraham.'  It 
pleased  not  the  Word  or  Wisdom  of  God  to  take  to  itself 
some  one  person  amongst  men,  for  then  should  that  one  have 
been  advanced,  wkic/i  was  assumed,  and  no  mare  ;  but  Wis- 
dom, to  the  end  she  might  save  many,  built  her  house  of 
that  nature  which  is  common  unto  all ;  she  made  not  this  or 
that  man  her  habitation,  but  dwelt  itt  us."  —  HOOKER'S 
Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Book  v.  eh.  52. 

NOTE  E.    Page  36. 

"Seest  thou  thy  Saviour,  therefore,  hanging  upon  the  cross  ? 
All  mankind  hangs  there  with  Him,  as  a  knight  or  burgess 
of  Parliament  voices  his  whole  borough  or  county.  What 
speak  I  of  this  ?  The  members  take  the  same  lot  with  the 
Head.  Every  believer  is  a  limb  of  that  Body ;  how  can  he, 
therefore,  but  die  with  Him,  and  in  Him  ?  That  real  union, 
then,  which  is  betwixt  Christ  and  us,  makes  the  cross  or  any 
passion  of  Christ  ours ;  so  as  the  thorns  pierced  our  heads, 
the  scourges  blooded  our  backs,  the  nails  wounded  our 
hands  and  feet,  and  the  spear  gored  our  sides  and  hearts ; 
by  virtue  whereof  we  receive  justification  from  our  sins,  and 


2d6  NOTES. 

true  mortification  of  our  corruptions.  Every  believer,  there- 
fore, is  dead  already  for  his  sins,  in  his  Saviour ;  he  need 
not  fear  that  he  shall  die  again.  God  is  too  just  to  punish 
twice  for  one  fault ;  to  recover  the  sum  of  both  the  surety 
and  principal.  All  the  score  of  our  arrearages  is  fully 
struck  off,  by  the  infinite  satisfaction  of  our  blessed  Re- 
deemer. Comfort  thyself,  therefore,  thou  penitent  and 
faithful  soul,  in  the  confidence  of  thy  safety.  Thou  shall 
not  die,  but  live,  since  thou  art  already  crucified  with  thy 
Saviour.  He  died  for  thee,  thou  diedst  in  Him."  —  BISHOP 
HALL. 

NOTE  F.      Page  38. 

If  such  a  view  of  justification  seems  to  some  to  tend  to 
demoralization,  —  this  easy  getting  rid  of  sin,  this  painless 
mode  of  suffering  for  guilt  in  the  person  of  another ;  it 
seems  to  us  the  only  true  safeguard  against  such  demoral- 
ization. A  gospel  that  makes  us  to  be  healed  of  our  sins 
so  easily  through  Christ,  makes  us  to  be  hurt  by  our  sins, 
more  easily  and  more  deeply  through  Him  also  than  we 
could  be  through  ourselves.  "Give  me  an  atoning  dying 
substitute,  and  make  me  so  thoroughly  one  with  Him  in 
God's  esteem,  and  by  the  Spirit's  work,  and  by  my  own 
faith,  as  that  in  taking  guilt  to  myself,  I  inevitably  and 
immediately  lay  it  on  Him ;  so  thoroughly  one  with  Him, 
that  I  cannot  possibly  take  guilt  to  Him,  without  taking  it 
to  myself,  and  then  and  not  till  then  shall  my  soul  return 
unto  her  rest ; "  J  aye,  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  shall  that 
soul  be  kept  from  entering  into  a  guilty  and  self-indulgent 
rest.  For  the  same  gospel  that  bids  the  penitent  believer 
enter  into  rest  because  he  has  been  "  crucified  with  Christ" 
bids  the  worldly  and  careless  believer  remember  that  he  is 
" 'crucifying  the  Son  of  God  afresh  and  putting  Him  to  an 
open  shame" 

1  Pev.  HUGH  MARTIN'S  A  tenement,  p.  187. 


NOTES.  207 

Note  G.     Page  55. 

Rom.  iv.  25.  "  Who  was  delivered  —  vnptSoDrj  5i4  T&  ra/»air- 
rdfiaTa.  7;ua'j/ —  because  of  our  sins  ;  and  raised  —  riytpQri  5iA 
rV  StiraiWir  ^tif  —  because  of  our  justification."  There 
would  seem  to  be  no  question  as  to  the  correctness  of 
Bishop  Horsley's  view  of  this  passage,  namely,  that  "  the 
Apostle  not  only  speaks  of  the  sins  of  men  as  the  cause  or 
occasion  of  our  Lord's  death,  but  of  the  justification  of  men 
as  equally  the  cause  or  occasion  of  his  resurrection.  Or  in 
other  terms,  "  that  our  Lord's  resurrection  took  place  in 
tonsequenoe  of  men's  justification,  in  the  same  manner  that 
his  death  took  place  in  consequtme  of  men's  sins.  See 
Nine  Sermons  on  our  Lord's  Resurrection. 

NOTE  H.    Page  69. 

41  But  ye  obeyed  from  the  heart  that  form  of  doctrine 
whereunto  ye  were  delivered."  (Rom.  vi.  17.)  Canon 
Wordsworth  draws  out  very  beautifully  from  this  passage 
the  truth  that  Christ's  death  and  resurrection  fix  the  mould 
or  pattern  of  Christian  life  into  which  at  baptism  we  are 
cast,  so  that  if  we  are  not  rigid  and  obstinate,  but  plastic 
and  pliant,  we  readily  take  its  form  and  wear  its  impress. 

NOTE  I.    Page  70. 

Since  some  still  question  the  allusion  in  this  passage  to 
immersion  as  the  primitive  form  of  baptism,  we  append 
the  following  testimonies  of  learned  and  judicious  men  of 
different  communions  :  — 

"  For  the  explanation  of  this  figurative  description  of  the 
baptismal  rite,  it  is  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the  well* 
known  circumstance,  that  in  the  early  days  of  the  Church, 
persons  when  baptized  were  first  plunged  below  and  then 
raised  above  the  water."  —  THOLUCK. 

"  There  can  be  no  question  that  the  original  form  of  bap- 


2O8  NOTES. 

tism  —  the  very  meaning  of  the  word,  —  was  complete  im- 
mersion in  the  deep  baptismal  waters  ;  and  that  at  least  for 
four  centuries  any  other  form  was  either  unknown  or  re- 
garded as  an  exceptional,  almost  a  monstrous  case."  — 
DEAN  STANLEY,  Eastern  Chiirch,  p.  44. 

"  This  passage  cannot  be  understood  unless  it  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  primitive  baptism  was  by  immersion."  — • 

CONYBEARE  AND  HOWSON. 

"  All  commentators  of  note  (except  Stuart  and  Hodge) 
expressly  admit  and  take  it  for  granted,  that  in  this  verse 
the  ancient  prevailing  mode  of  baptism  by  immersion  and 
emersion  is  implied,  as  giving  additional  force  to  the  idea  of 
the  going  down  of  the  old  and  the  raising  up  of  the  new 
man."  —  DR.  SCHAFF,  note  to  Lange,  p.  202. 

NOTE  J.    Page  135. 

"  Name,  Svopa,  Btt%  used  in  application  to  God  and  to 
Christ  as  the  manifestation  of  God,  —  always  denotes  the  en- 
tity itself  in  the  whole  compass  of  its  properties.  Accord- 
ingly prayer  in  the  name  of  Christ,  is  such  as  is  offered  in 
the  nature,  mind,  and  Spirit  of  Christ."  —  OLSHAUSEN. 

"  We  pray  in  the  name,  that  is,  actually  in  the  person  of 
Christ,  that  is,  as  standing  in  his  place  through  his  prepar- 
atory and  intercessory  supplication,  as  if  he  came  in  with 
us  and  Himself  prayed  what  we  ask.  Nor  is  this  a  mere 
'as  if ; "  rather  it  is  the  essential  truth  of  the  matter.  — 
STIER.  . 

NOTE  K.    Page  138. 

"  Having  previously  said  that  prayer  in  the  name  of  Christ 
U  ever  heard  by  the  Father,  he  now  adds  the  condition 
that  we  pray  according  to  his  will.  The  one  is  involved  in  the 
ether,  as  we  have  already  shown.  He  who  prays  in  the  name  of 
Christ  is  moved  and  guided  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ  in  prayer. 


NOTES.  2O9 

He  can  ask  for  nothing  but  that  which  is  in  accordance  with  tht 
will  of  God ;  can  with  assurance  ask  only  that  which  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  makes  known  to  him  in  prayer  as  corresponding  to 
the  Father's  will.  When  this  certainty  is  wanting,  his  prayer 
will  always  be  accompanied  with  the  condition  that  the  desire 
arising  in  his  soul  and  taking  the  form  of  prayer,  may  have 
for  its  object  something  which  the  Father  approves."  —  NE- 
ANDER  on  I  John  v.  14. 

NOTE  L.    Page  147. 

Prayer  in  Christ  is  "  the  Eternal  Life  which  comes  to  us 
through  the  Son,  ascending  from  us  through  the  Son,  the 
Son  in  us  honoring  the  Father,  the  worship  of  Sonship  as 
such  grateful  to  the  Father,  who  seeketh  such  warship. 
Freedom  and  confidence  of  acknowledgment  are  of  the 
very  nature  of  such  worship ;  arising  necessarily  from  the 
oneness  of  the  Spirit,  causing  oneness  of  mind  and  will  in 
the  worshippers  and  in  Him  who  is  worshipped.  In  such 
worship  there  is  a  continual  living  presentation  of  Christ  to 
the  Father,  a  continual  drawing  upon  the  delight  of  the 
Father  in  the  Son,  the  outgoing  of  a  confidence  that,  what- 
ever is  asked  in  Christ's  name,  in  the  light  of  his  name,  in 
the  faith  of  the  Father's  acknowledgment  of  that  name,  will 
be  received.  The  praises  rendered,  the  desires  cherished, 
the  prayers  offered,  are  all  within  the  circle  of  the  life  of 
Christ,  and  ascend  with  the  assurance  of  partaking  in  the 
favor  which  pertains  to  that  life,  which  rests  upon  Him  who 
is  that  life."  —  J.  McLEOD  CAMPBELL,  D.  D.,  Christ  the 
R read  of  Lift,  p.  130. 


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